Harry Potter and the Hands of Apollo
by DrScienceMD
Summary: When the Dursleys find a seven-year-old Harry practicing magic, he is beaten and left for dead in the woods, thought lost to the world. Years later he rescues a young girl from the clutches of Death Eaters and is introduced to the wizarding world in a very different way. Harry must find his place in a world he had never dreamed of - and maybe find a new family at the same time.
1. Chapter 1: The Boy-who-Disappeared

"Hey, Darlene, got another one for you!" called Sgt. Harvey Feinstein of the Surrey Police Department.

Darlene Woodruff sighed. She was the acting head of the Surrey Branch of Child Protective Services. Their previous chief had recently resigned along with what seemed like half the department, and Darlene was buried in backlogged work. No doubt Feinstein was here to add yet another case to her already overworked department.

"What is it this time, Harvey?" she asked wearily.

The officer shrugged. "Nothin' unusual, probably a runaway. Got a call from Surrey Public Library, kid there was looking suspicious. He was just sittin' there reading all quiet-like, but he looks like he sleeps on the streets, and smells like he hasn't seen a shower in weeks. Skittish little thing, probably abused. I thought it was right up your alley."

Darlene sighed again. Cases like this came up far more often than she liked, but she knew how to handle them.

"Did you get a name?"

"Said his name was James," Harvey told her. "Didn't get a last name, and I doubt that's his real name anyway. Not a fan of men, I can tell."

Darlene nodded. That was hardly unusual. Still, much as she hated adding another case, she was grateful for the brief distraction from paperwork. And she was glad that it was Harvey who brought the boy in – he had a real soft spot for kids. Most beat cops would just end up throwing them back on the streets to avoid the extra work for themselves.

"I'll grab some sandwiches and run his prints, yeah?" Harvey offered.

"Much appreciated," she said honestly. At least she'd get lunch out of the deal.

She walked over to their "interview room." It was an office that they had appropriated for talking to children picked up from the streets. It was locked to prevent them from leaving, but had a relatively homey feel. Darlene made sure there were always toys and coloring materials available to keep them occupied, and some stuffed animals for the younger ones to help them feel safe. There were cameras up in the corners but it was as nonthreatening as she could make it.

She knocked on the door and entered, getting her first look at her newest charge. James was a young boy of about eight, she estimated. He was a tiny slip of a child with a mop of messy black hair and bright, piercing green eyes. James sat on the edge of his seat, clearly ready to bolt at any minute. She smiled at him gently, trying to put him at ease.

"James?" she asked softly. "May I come in?"

His gaze sharpened. She had the bizarre and highly uncomfortable feeling that he was staring into her very soul. He stared for what felt like an eternity, but was likely only a few seconds; eventually he must have found something that comforted him, because he gave her a small smile and relaxed ever-so-slightly.

"Do you mind if I sit down? I'd like to talk for a bit if that's alright with you," she told him.

He shrugged, and she sat down across from him. "How are you doing today, James?" she asked.

"I'm okay," he told her in a surprisingly deep, gravelly voice. "Who are you?"

"My name is Darlene," she told him with a warm smile. "Is it alright if I call you James?"

He nodded.

"Do you have a last name, James?" she asked him.

The pause before he spoke told her that his answer was almost certainly going to be false.

"Smith," he said.

She nodded, pretending not to notice the untruth. It wasn't the first 'Smith' who'd come from the streets.

"I'm with Children's Services. Do you know what we do here?"

He pondered that for a moment. "Do you put people back with their relatives?" he asked, his smile vanishing from his face. It was replaced by his initial calculating gaze.

She noted sadly that he had said 'relatives' and not 'family.' Undoubtedly he'd been treated poorly by his family – either abandoned or a runaway.

"Sometimes," she answered carefully. "It's our job to make sure every young boy and girl has a nice, happy home to go to."

He let out a soft snort of disbelief, but said nothing in reply. She repressed a sigh.

"My friend Officer Feinstein brought you here because some people were concerned about you being all alone –"

"I wasn't doing anything wrong," he blurted angrily. "I just wanted to read my book."

"What were you reading?" she asked.

"A book about snakes. They took it away from me. I wasn't bothering anyone," he insisted.

"I know you weren't," she said gently. "You aren't going to be in trouble."

"You're going to try to make me go back to the Dursleys," he shouted angrily. "I already told you people that I'm not going!"

Darlene blinked. He'd been here before, evidently. At least she'd gotten a real name to go on. She could look him up in the files later.

"Why don't you want to go back to your relatives, James?"

He glared at her silently.

"We don't have to talk about them, then," she suggested. "Do you like snakes?"

He nodded cautiously, suspicion plain on his young face.

"What do you like to do in your free time, when you aren't reading about snakes?"

"I walk a lot," he offered. "I talk to Sam."

"Oh? Is Sam your friend?" An adult? Or an imaginary friend, perhaps?

James nodded. "He's a snake. It's his birthday coming up, I want to get him a present."

"I see," she told him. Either a snake lived near him, or it his imaginary friend wasn't even human. "What do snakes want for their birthday?"

He frowned in thought. "I don't know. He likes mice, but he usually gets those himself. I thought about getting him a rock he can sleep on."

She nodded. Most likely it was a real snake that he had found. If he lived near snakes, he was probably sleeping in the woods somewhere outside of town.

"That sounds like a good idea," she said encouragingly. "I'm sure Sam will love it."

His smile was back again, green eyes sparkling.

"So, James, since you haven't done anything wrong, would you like to go home now?"

His smile became a full-fledged grin, and he nodded his head eagerly.

"Where's home for you? We'd like to have a talk with whoever you're staying with, just to make sure they aren't worried about you."

"I live by myself now," he told her, sounding quite proud of this fact. "Nobody worries about me, except Sam."

"What about your relatives?" she asked again. "I'm sure the Dursleys want to know you're alright."

He scowled. "They left me to die. I won't go back, and you can't make me!"

Abandonment, then. Those were tricky cases to deal with, if the family had gotten away with it – and they usually did. "If you can't go back there, we can send you to a nice home with lots of other children," she offered. "All you have to do is tell us a bit more about the Dursleys and then we'll find the best home for you. I'm sure there's a nice family out there looking for a boy like you to add to their family – doesn't that sound nice?"

"I want to leave now," he said firmly, his face a mask of determination.

This time she did sigh aloud. She'd seen that face many times, and she knew she was getting nothing else out of him. Standing up she made her way to the door. "We'll be in in a little bit to talk about getting you a good place to go. Feel free to do some coloring in the meantime – it's supposed to be very relaxing," she gave him a parting smile. He jerked his head in acknowledgement, and she left, shutting the door behind her softly. She made sure she heard the click of the lock and returned to her office quickly.

"How'd it go?" Harvey was sitting in her chair, feet propped up on the desk – but what caught her attention more was the plate of sandwiches and bags of crisps he had brought with him.

"Well enough," she told him truthfully, as she led him to the filing room to look for his file. "Got a name to go off of, at least. He's been here before, he says, so he should be in the system. Does the name 'Dursley' ring any bells?"

To her surprise, he nodded slowly, frowning in thought. "Actually, yeah. I remember a Dursley family from a case 'bout a year or two back – filed a missing-persons case for their nephew, seven at the time. Said he was disturbed and ran away from home."

Her eyebrow raised in surprise. "I'm impressed you remember," she told him.

He barked out a laugh. "I only remember because their son threw a tantrum right in the police station, somethin' about not wantin' to waste time lookin' for 'the freak.' Horrible folks – couldn't even produce a recent picture of him. Had to use an old school photo."

"What's the chances that there's another Dursley family out there that has been missing a young relative about that age?"

"About none," he said with a shrug. "But I'd be careful – the Dursley chap is old friends with the Chief. Golf buddies, I think. We'd need hard evidence, otherwise little James is goin' right back there."

"Likely that's what happened last time," Darlene shook her head in frustration. "You don't happen to know what his real name is, do you? I can always call the school, they'll likely know if you don't."

He thought for a moment. "Potter was the last name. First name… Harry, maybe?" he ended, unsure. Still it was enough to go off of. And sure enough, Harry Potter's name was on one of the old files.

Darlene flipped through it quickly. "Let's see… declared missing a year ago… no evidence of mistreatment… picked up twice since without charge… escaped custody both times before they could return him to this family. Not much of use, really."

Harvey shrugged. "Are you surprised?"

"Not at all," she sighed. "Do you mind if I eat before doing anything else? I'm starving."

He chuckled and followed her back to her office. She grabbed one of the sandwiches and bit a huge chunk out of it before pulling up some new paperwork.

"Do you want to try talking to him?" she asked, not wanting Harvey to have to stand there watching her fill out forms. "He's not going to talk with me for a while, and unless the building catches fire I'm not going anywhere until I've finished this sandwich."

Harvey laughed. "I'll give it a shot. Lord knows Dianne has been on me enough to lose some weight, so maybe it'll be better if I get used to skipping meals." He gave his slight potbelly an exaggerated pat, and she chuckled. Harvey often complained about his wife giving him a hard time, but she'd never seen him mention her without a smile on his face. Bless him, she thought, tearing into her roast-beef sandwich with relish.

She had just taken her second bite of the sandwich when Harvey rushed back into the room.

"He's gone!"

"What?!" she stood up in alarm. "What happened?"

"I don't know," Harvey replied quickly. "The door was still locked, but he's not in the room!"

They ran back to the room to find that, indeed, there was no trace of young James. It was as though he had vanished into thin air.

"You're sure the door was locked?" she asked. She clearly remembered locking it on her way out, but it was possible that he'd somehow picked the lock… then snuck past them… without them hearing it… Well, that was the best idea she could think of.

"Definitely locked," Harvey told her. "He might've picked the lock, but why lock it back up on his way out?"

"I've no idea," she told him honestly. "Any chance he's hiding in the building?"

Harvey just snorted. "If he's not in that room, he's definitely not in the building. He's probably gone back to wherever it is he's been hidin' out the last year or so. He'll turn up again, sooner or later."

"This is the third time he's gotten out of here before going back to his relatives. Kid's a regular Houdini."

Harvey gave a rueful chuckle. "Well, looks like I'll have some paperwork of my own to work on. I better head out now if I want to be home for dinner."

"Good luck," she said gloomily, looking forlornly at the giant stack of paperwork on her desk still waiting to be completed.

"Have fun writing up your talk with our little 'Boy-Who-Disappeared," he said with a smile. "I'll let you know if anything turns up on our end."

"Thanks for the sandwiches," she said, and gave him a half-hearted wave as he strolled out of the office. With a huge sigh she put down her sandwich and started filling out her encounter report. As she went to write the boy's name she gave a final little chortle. 'Boy-who-disappeared' indeed. What a silly name for a child. With a shake of her head she plowed on with her filing. By the end of the hour the little boy with messy hair and green eyes was nearly forgotten, buried under a mound of other charts and files.


	2. Chapter 2: A Walk in the Woods

Harry Potter hiked soundlessly through the woods, enjoying the first sunny day in almost two weeks. Finally, he thought, spring was arriving. A few green buds were beginning to sprout from the trees, and the tips of some wildflowers were just peeking through the hard ground. They did little to stop the chilly March breeze from whistling through the forest, but Harry was not bothered by the cold. He had endured far worse out here in the forests of Britain, where he had spent the last few years of his young life.

Harry Potter was an unusual boy. For one thing, not many ten year old boys lived alone in the forests of Britain these days. Fewer, if any, had lived there alone for almost three years, as he had. Most normal children would have died, or been caught by authorities shortly after running away. But his lifestyle was not the only strange thing about him. For Harry Potter had a unique, almost supernatural ability to survive terrible situations. He could use his magic – for so he called it, if only to himself – to light fires, make shelters, hunt game, and do all other sorts of handy things. His skills kept him alive and comfortable, there was no doubt; it was perhaps ironic, then, that it was exactly these abilities that had led to his current living situation to begin with.

Harry's parents had died when he only a baby, apparently in a car crash. He himself had received nothing but a lightning-bolt-shaped scar on his forehead in the accident. Afterward he went to live with his mother's sister, Petunia Dursley. She lived in Surrey with her corpulent husband Vernon and their precious son Dudley, a boy around Harry's age. Harry didn't know why he had been sent to live there – the Dursleys had made it clear for as long as Harry could remember that they hated him, and would rather have dumped him in an orphanage.

But whatever the reason, they did not dump him in an orphanage, even if he wished they had. Poor Harry was forced to do all of the chores almost as soon as he could walk. He slept not in a nice bedroom like Dudley, but in the tiny cupboard under the stairs. It was fairly cozy, but it got very cold in the winter, and the wooden floor was rather uncomfortable to sleep on. Furthermore, despite being the same age as Harry, Dudley probably weighed about four times as much. He was allowed to eat anything he wanted, and Harry had to cook it for him starting at the tender age of five. Harry remembered it well. He was given his first ever "Christmas gift" that year – a stool so he could stand and properly work the stove. It was too short, of course, and he burned himself frequently (Dudley's constant shoving didn't help, either), but at least he was sometimes able to sneak some of the food from the pan. Other than that he was given only the smallest portions of every meal. Consequently Harry had always been thin and short and looked much younger than his real age.

The Dursleys, of course, did not want to spend any money on Harry if they could help it, so he was only given Dudley's old hand-me-downs to wear. His tiny frame and baggy clothes made him a laughingstock when he went off to school. Any friends he might have made were quickly scared off by Dudley and his gang of bullies, who spent most of their time trying to beat Harry up. Harry was usually fast enough to avoid them, but sometimes they managed to sneak up on him or corner him, and he spent many nights curled up in pain in his cupboard.

The teachers were no help either. Petunia Dursley spent all day gossiping with the neighbors about their no-good, layabout nephew and his deviant ways. Whenever he ventured outside the Dursleys house at Number Four, Privet Drive, in Surrey, he was given dirty looks, and women sometimes shooed him off of their lawns as though he was a rabid animal. The teachers found excuses to punish him, and Dudley made sure that Harry's homework got "lost" or destroyed often enough that Harry's grades weren't very impressive. This worked to Harry's advantage though; whenever he did better than Dudley, his uncle would usually try to "beat the cheating out of him," as he put it.

Miraculously, though, Harry was an excellent healer. Wounds would disappear overnight, leaving him with only a lingering soreness the following day. Whenever his Aunt or Uncle bothered to notice this, they always muttered things like "freak" and "spawn of Satan," and grounded him to his cupboard with no meals for a few days. When he emerged, they would be back to their usual unpleasant selves. Soon after, either Dudley or his Uncle Vernon would do something to injure him, and the cycle would repeat.

It was a sunny spring day a few months after Harry's seventh birthday when everything changed for our young hero. On recess, Dudley and his gang had decided to chase Harry around (as usual), clearly intending to beat him up yet again. Harry was running away (as usual), wishing (as usual) that he was somewhere, anywhere else. Suddenly, he found himself up on the roof of the school, much to his own surprise. He marveled at his good fortune, and enjoyed the confused looks on Dudley's face as they searched for him. After Dudley's bewildered gang had wandered away, looking for someone else to harass, Harry sat up on the roof pondering how he had gotten up there. All he remembered was a sudden feeling of being squeezed through a tube, lasting only for an instant.

But it was such a useful skill that he resolved to figure out how to use it on a regular basis. So began his training in "magic." Young Harry had always been discouraged from talking about or acting in a way that the Dursleys considered "abnormal." Even their precious Dudley was scolded a few times for talking about the magical spells or wizards in one of his computer games. Harry was no genius, but he knew better than to let the Dursleys catch him doing magic.

His time in his cramped cupboard therefore stopped being a punishment and soon became Harry's salvation. If he could teleport, he thought, surely there were other magical deeds he could perform. Sure enough, after weeks of exhaustive effort, Harry was able to make his toys move around with only his mind. He could make lights appear in his hand, lock and unlock his cupboard, fix broken toys or clothing, and (of course) teleport himself. To his extreme disappointment, he could not do anything particularly flashy; an ill-advised attempt to launch a fireball at one of his Aunt's rosebushes merely ended up burning his hand and leaving the roses completely unharmed.

Alas, all good things must come to an end. His Aunt stumbled upon him levitating a pan of bacon one morning while he was making breakfast for his family. All hell had broken loose. Harry's memory of the day was rather hazy, but he knew how it ended. His uncle had beaten him into unconsciousness; when he woke up many hours later he found himself in the woods in the middle of nowhere. He had woken up with a splitting headache following a bizarre nightmare in which an evil wizard named Tom had attempted to take over his brain via the scar on his forehead. His dream-self had managed to drive off the man just before he had awoken. Even after he returned to the land of the living, it had taken days to fully heal the myriad cuts, bruises, and broken bones that his relatives had given him.

Ever since he had roamed around the forests scattered around Britain. His first few months had been his darkest days – he had not yet known how to catch food for himself, and he had to resort several times to stealing (guilty as it made him feel). Finding shelter was difficult as well, even with his magical abilities to teleport and turn invisible when he needed to. Several times he had wound up having to teleport away from strange men and women who had stumbled across his sleeping body huddled away in some abandoned building or cave. Having magic was an enormous boon, though, and desperation honed his abilities rapidly.

Nowadays he was quite comfortable in his outdoor lifestyle. He stayed near Surrey during the winter months, where he could teleport into the Dursleys to steal some food when the safer plants and animals were scarce. Otherwise he roamed wherever he could find a place away from people – the summer before he had wandered around Scotland for several months and found it quite comfortable. His magic was now as much a part of him as his arms and legs, and he wielded it with casual ease. He knew how to magic up a shelter on cold, snowy nights; how to hunt, fish, and collect plants to eat; how to stay quiet and invisible to human eyes; and many other things besides. He carried a short spear and a bow and arrow with him for hunting; although he had initially relied mostly on magic to guide his shots, he was proud to say that he was quite decent now without any magic at all.

Harry's only regret was that he wasn't able to go to school. He snuck into the library when he could, and the few books he had pilfered from Dudley's second bedroom were among his most prized possessions, but they couldn't replace a real education. Thanks to Dudley's old dictionary (never used before Harry had taken it), he was able to read fairly well, though doing it for too long made his head hurt. He thought it might be due to his eyes – he often had to squint and use his magic to make things clear, which gave him a headache. He had tried to find some old glasses in the trash a few times, but it seemed like nobody threw them away, and he was loathe to steal them just to avoid a few headaches.

Currently, Harry thought he was somewhere in the Forest of Dean – that was what the sign he'd passed the day before had said. He was wandering around looking for a suitable place to camp when he was torn from his reminiscing by a sudden rush of power send tingles across his skin. It felt as though he had crossed some kind of magical barrier. Instantly he attempted to teleport away. Ever since his parting from the Dursleys it was his standard response to a dangerous situation, and it had never failed him before. But now somehow his ability was blocked. No doubt, he thought, it had something to do with the strange power he had felt. He retreated a few steps, feeling the tingling again, but almost in reverse. Strands of the foreign feeling stuck to him like cobwebs, almost as though it was reluctant to let him go.

Unsure of what had just occurred, he ducked behind a nearby tree and pulled out his bow and an arrow, ready to strike if anything came too close. Using his magic to enhance his senses, he searched for any hint of a threat – a rustling in the leaves, a faint smell, anything out of the ordinary. He sent a few tendrils of magic into his eyes and took a closer look at the area – and nearly had to look away immediately. The magical barrier glowed like the sun. Multiple colors – gold, silver, greens, and blues – swirled together to form a hypnotic dome that stretched for miles around. It was so obviously magical that Harry wondered if he had somehow fallen asleep and was dreaming the whole thing. A pinch to his leg disproved this theory.

After a few tense minutes examining the barrier and waiting for any possible consequences, he relaxed somewhat. It seemed that nothing was going to happen, so he put his bow away again. A snake peeked its head from his sleeve, having sensed his disquiet.

" _Smell something interesting, Harry?"_ it hissed sleepily.

To most people, having a snake slither out from your shirt would be a cause for alarm, if not outright panic. Harry, as we have already established, was far from normal. The snake was in fact his closest (well, only) friend. Harry wasn't sure why he easily understood the hisses of snakes as though they were in English, but he had long since stopped worrying about it. It was just another one of his mysterious but useful magic powers, and asking why was just silly – it was magic, and magic simply was.

He had befriended the Common European Adder early on after escaping from Privet Drive. Wandering through the woods hunting for his supper, he had heard someone whispering from a nearby bush. To his surprise, the only thing there turned out to be a small snake, only about two feet long. It was hissing something about noisy humans disturbing its sleep. Harry had apologized, and at first he hadn't even realized he'd spoken in the snake language. Evidently it was quite rare, and it was an honor for any snake to meet what they called a "Speaker." The two had been inseparable ever since. For his part, Harry had been happy to find a companion. Sam, as he had named the snake, enjoyed sleeping wrapped around Harry's arm or waist, as it gave him a safe, warm place to rest. He also seemed to feed off of some of Harry's magic, as he was considerably smarter and larger than most other snakes of his size that Harry had seen. In return, Harry had someone to talk to, and Sam occasionally scouted out areas to look for game or water sources that Harry might have missed.

"I'm not sure," Harry told Sam. "We just passed some kind of magical barrier."

" _That's what that was?_ " Sam hissed back. " _I thought it was the wind._ "

As Harry was beginning to explain the teleportation-blocking property of the barrier, he felt, and then heard, a disturbance not far away. Screams, from a young girl by the sound of it, echoed through the hills. Whoever it was was obviously in a great deal of pain, and Harry knew without hesitation that he had to go help the owner of the voice. He immediately sprinted toward the sound as quickly as he could. Jumping through the barrier, he again felt the tingle spread over his skin, but this time it felt different. Instead of feeling unpleasant it felt welcoming, invigorating. If he had to describe it, it almost felt as though it was inviting him in.

There was no time to ponder this feeling, though, and he ignored it in favor of finding the injured girl. Her screams continued unabated as he sprinted through the trees, and he felt a rush of fear run through him. Whatever she was screaming about must have been extremely terrible; he sincerely hoped he wouldn't be too late. Part of his mind whispered that he should be running the opposite direction, but he shoved the thoughts down and buried them. Harry never thought of himself as brave, but he couldn't bear to see anyone in pain when they didn't deserve it. So Harry rushed into the unknown, screams echoing in his ears and a strange magical force tingling in his skin.


	3. Chapter 3: A Clash of Worlds

After what seemed like hours (but was probably only a minute or so), he could see people in a clearing up ahead – obviously where the voice had originated. As he got closer, the screaming stopped abruptly, and he could hear other people laughing cruelly. It reminded him of the way his relatives used to laugh after one of his "punishments," and the knot of fear tightened in his gut.

Stalking ahead much more warily now (he could tell that these were not people that he wanted to meet if at all possible) he was able to get a better look at the clearing. A young girl, not much older than him, was huddled at the foot of a large oak tree. She had red hair that was disheveled and full of dirt and sticks. Tears streaked down her face, and a trickle of blood was running down from her lip. One of her legs was clearly broken and bent at such an unnatural angle that made Harry wince. He was no stranger to broken bones, and even he would have been in serious pain from such a fracture. She was no longer screaming, it seemed, but had progressed to pitiful whimpers that he could barely hear.

More concerning to him were the four adults that stood around her. Their poses were relaxed; it was obvious that they were not there to help the young girl. Two of the adults were still chuckling – oddly, their voices sounded male, but they seemed to be wearing some kind of dress, or perhaps a bath robe. They were facing away from him at the moment, so he could not see their faces. One of them, a short, skinny man with a small black ponytail sticking over the back of his dress/robe, spoke up just then.

"I love putting these blood-traitors in their place as much as anyone but if Weber doesn't get here soon I say we leave without him," said Mr. Black Ponytail, who was closest to the girl. He brandished his hand as he spoke and Harry saw that he was holding a stick of some kind. Perhaps he had been using it to hit the girl, thought Harry, as the girl seemed to shrink away from the stick. His blood boiled with rage.

"We wouldn't be in such a rush if you three had just taken the girl silently like I told you," replied another man. His tone was bossy, and he had short grey hair. Harry guessed that this might be the leader based on his age and the way that he addressed the others.

"Aww, where's the fun in that?" said a third man with a laugh. This third man was the largest of the three. "I haven't had this much fun in ages. 'Sides, the ward line's not far. If we hear anyone coming, we'll be out of here in no time."

"We wouldn't have to worry about anyone finding us if you'd just put a bloody silencing charm on her, you idiot!" snarled The Leader.

"Alright, alright, we should have cast the bloody charm," conceded Mr. Black Ponytail. "But it's too late now, and all we have to do is wait for Weber to get here, and we'll be home free."

The Leader waved the stick that he was holding (looking closer, Harry noticed that all of them were holding a stick except for the girl). To Harry's surprise, a series of numbers suddenly appeared in midair. Apparently they represented the time, because The Leader looked at them for a moment before saying,

"Weber was supposed to be here ten minutes ago. If he isn't here in five minutes, he probably got himself captured or killed, so we leave without him."

The mysterious numbers disappeared. Perhaps the sticks were some kind of flashlight clocks or something, Harry mused. The Dursleys had never had anything like that, but then again, it had been many months since he'd really talked to anyone, so it was possible that these watch-sticks were a recent invention.

"In the meantime, I say we have some more fun with little Susie here," said Mr. Black Ponytail menacingly.

"Just keep it simple. The minute those Aurors appear, we are out of here. I'm not facing Mad-Eye Moody just because you louts couldn't find it in your minds to cast a simple Silencer," replied the Leader.

Mr. Black Ponytail waved his stick around and said something that sounded to Harry like "Crucio!" A beam of bright red light burst from the stick, but instead of forming numbers it flew across the clearing and struck the girl. She began to scream again, her body writhing against the ground in agony. Harry could only watch silently, too shocked to move. These men were _monsters_! They were all standing there _laughing_! After a few moments, the man waved his stick again, and the screams stopped.

"Come on, try something else, that one's getting old!" said The Tall Man. The other man obliged, and cast a blue beam of light at the girl. A cut suddenly appeared on her arm, and she let out a cry of pain.

"Careful," warned The Leader. "We need her alive!"

Harry had had enough at this point. He had to stop these men. It didn't matter that they were all far bigger than him, armed with mysterious magic sticks, while he had only a crude handmade spear and a small hunting bow. They had to be stopped. He knelt down to the ground and quietly hissed to Sam, who poked his head out of Harry's sleeve.

" _I am going to stop the men in that clearing ahead. It will be dangerous – you should get as far away as you can."_

Sam nodded at him. " _Do you want me to bite them?"_ he asked.

Harry shook his head. " _Too dangerous. They have some kind of magic stick. If I don't come back… Take care of yourself, friend."_

Sam seemed reluctant to leave his arm, but sensing Harry's urgency he slithered out onto the ground and into the leaves. " _If they kill you, I shall bite them all_ ," Sam hissed to him. Harry smiled grimly, and then turned his attention back to the clearing. The men were taking turns casting little beams of blue light at the girl (Susie, Harry reminded himself). She flinched and whimpered when they struck, but they seemed less severe than the red lights, so Harry allowed himself a few moments for stealth. Turning himself and his spear invisible, he crept noiselessly through the trees until he was only a few feet from the edge of the clearing. He was about to launch his spear at the nearest man before a sudden thought struck him.

He was about to kill a person. The thought made him pause. It seemed a lot bigger than just hunting deer or rabbits. He didn't know anything about these men. Maybe they were really the good guys, and the girl was actually some kind of evil witch? He closed his eyes and reached out with his power. When it reached the men in the clearing, he almost recoiled. They had their own magic, but it was very different from what he was used to. Theirs was darker, and almost slimy. It made him think of the magic that had once been in his forehead, beneath his scar. The girl's, on the other hand, felt almost like his magic – a bit softer than his, but it was pretty obvious that she wasn't evil.

Still, he thought, if he killed these men with their backs turned, wouldn't that make him a murderer? Wouldn't he then be even worse than them? The right thing to do was at least give them a chance to run away. Maybe they would turn themselves in to the police and go to jail. That seemed like the best thing. Reluctantly, he made himself visible again. Taking a deep breath to calm his nerves, he stepped out from the trees.

"Leave the girl alone." His voice, though gravelly from disuse, was hard and steady. Only a faint flicker of anxiety tickled the back of his mind, warning him of the danger he was in. He pushed it down; it was perfectly clear what he had to do, and he knew that his decision was the right one. The magic in the air seemed to hum in agreement, and it hardened his resolve.

The men all jumped and looked around in surprise. As they spun to face him, Harry noticed that they were all wearing strange white masks. Spotting Harry, The Leader let out a small laugh.

"Who are you, brat?"

Harry had been called far worse; if the situation hadn't been so serious, he might have enjoyed calling the man some of the names he had heard from his Uncle. Instead, he ignored the man's question entirely and replied,

"Leave her alone."

The men all laughed.

"What are you going to do about it, boy? Poke us with your stick?" said The Tall Man condescendingly.

"If I have to," Harry answered as calmly as he could. "Leave the girl alone, or I'll make you."

"Give the girl another Cruciatus. Show this boy what happens when he sticks his nose into other peoples' business."

The man standing in front of the girl, pointing his stick at her, brandished it and said, " _crucio!_ " The red beam of light flew across the clearing. Again, it struck the girl and she screamed and writhed in obvious pain. Harry had given them a chance, but now he knew without a doubt that it was time to act. With a quick flick of his wrist he launched his spear at Mr. Black Ponytail. A small push with his magic and it crossed the distance between them in the blink of an eye. The man didn't even have time to react before it pierced his chest, punching through his heart with ease. Susie stopped screaming, the evil spell apparently cut off when the man died. Harry pulled his spear back to him with a tug of his magic, and the man's body collapsed to the ground.

The other men let out alarmed shouts. They pointed their sticks at him and wordlessly sent jets of colored light in Harry's direction. They passed harmlessly through the space where he had been standing; Harry had long since vacated that spot in favor of sheltering behind a large elm tree. Covering his body with invisibility magic, he popped back out and launched his spear. The next man was obviously no slouch though; he had magicked up some type of shield, and the spear fell to the ground a foot in front of him as though it had struck a wall.

Harry ducked back behind the tree, avoiding another jet of light, while he pondered how to get around the strange magic shield. Making sure that he stayed invisible, he sprinted around the clearing, hiding behind trees and bushes to ensure that his shadow wasn't spotted. The men were shouting now and casting their magic spells in random directions.

"Dammit, Moody must have used Polyjuice or some shit!" yelled one. "Let's get the hell out of here!"

"Jugson, get the girl!" shouted The Leader.

Harry somehow knew that he had to prevent them from reaching the magic barrier that he had run into earlier. He picked up a stick from the ground and carefully sharpened it to a fine point using his magic. It wasn't his best work, but it would do for now. Stepping out from cover, he launched it at The Tallest Man, who was reaching for Susie. His makeshift spear struck the man in the back. He let out a roar of pain, and Harry had to duck under two jets of light that were sent his way. One was a rusty brown color, and although it missed him, it exploded when it struck a nearby tree, sending wooden splinters in every direction. Harry covered his head, and his back and arms were peppered with the sharp splinters. Shaking off the pain, Harry sent as pulse of magic back at them, hoping to knock the men over at least, but another shield absorbed his magic and the men remained completely unharmed. Harry dodged their return spells and rushed away, taking cover behind a large oak to catch his breath.

This was not going well, he realized. He took a quick peak around the trunk to see what the men were up to. The Leader was casting some sort of pale magic shield around the whole clearing, muttering under his breath the whole time. The other wizard had pulled the spear out of The Tallest Man's back and was casting some magic at the wound. Harry knew that he was outclassed; in a prolonged fight he was sure to get killed. One more of those explosion spells and he was done for. He had a sudden idea – it was a huge risk, and if it didn't work he was definitely going to die, but it seemed like his best chance to stop the men without harming Susie.

Creeping forward, he reached a large tree on the edge of the clearing. It was touching the large magic shield that The Leader was casting, and its branches reached over the top of the shield easily. Patting the tree affectionately, Harry whispered a quick apology to it before putting both hands on the trunk and _pushing_ with his magic. His power flowed into the tree, until he could feel it like an extension of his own body. Pushing every ounce of power he could muster into the tree, he asked it – begged it – to protect the girl and defeat the evil magic-men in the clearing.

Trees, like all living things, had magic of their own. Harry knew that he could use magic to control other living things, but he wasn't nearly powerful enough to do anything really useful. Using only his own strength, he might be able to get a small tree to bend over, or swing some branches around, but this tree was too big for him to even do that. He knew from prior experience, though, that using his magic to _ask_ the tree for things was far easier than _forcing_ the tree to do things. This was how he made his shelters when the weather turned bad – normally the trees took pity on him, and made him a nice covered area with their branches. In return, he gave them some magic, which they seemed to like.

In this case, he was asking the tree to actively attack the men. It was definitely the biggest and most complicated request he had ever made of any plant. He had no idea if the tree would respond – if it didn't, he had given most of his remaining magic to the tree for nothing, and he would certainly die. After a few moments of holding the tree, in which nothing at all happened, he began to despair. But just when he was about to give up, the tree suddenly woke up. Normally, trees _felt_ very peaceful and sleepy, and their magic was quite calm. This tree, though, seemed much more magical than usual. To Harry, its magic felt like a raging fire. He got flashes of what he could only describe as the tree's emotions. It was angry at the men for using bad magic on its land, on someone under its protection. The feeling that Harry had gotten from the magic barrier returned with a vengeance – protectiveness, righteous fury, and a watchful vigilance.

 _Yes,_ he told the tree desperately. _Protect the girl_. _Help me save her_. And the tree responded.

Harry watched as the massive trunk suddenly surged forward, leaning onto the shield at the edge of the clearing. A pair of thick branches swung out and bashed into the shield, causing it to ripple and buckle. The branches pulled back and swung again, and this time the shield shattered into sparks, before fading into nothing. The Leader staggered, even though he had not been touched.

"What the hell?" he shouted, fear evident in his voice.

He cast a spell at the tree, cutting a thick gouge into the trunk. Harry, one hand still on the trunk, felt the tree burn with rage. A thin branch whipped through the air and wrapped around the man's arm. It squeezed like a snake, and the man's arm deflated with a sickening crunch. The stick fell from his mangled hand. Another branch reached out toward the man, wrapping around his neck. He struggled desperately, and Harry looked away. Another crunching sound signaled that the man was no longer a threat.

Meanwhile, the other two magic-men had noticed the tree coming to life with astonishment. Two branches were sent their way, and the men waved their sticks in different ways. The Tallest Man cast a sickle-shaped wave of magic that cut off the branch that reached for him. The tree responded by sending five more branches at him. He countered with waves of fire and more cutting magic, desperately fending off the branches. Harry took advantage of his distraction and, despite his growing exhaustion, sent a pulse of magic across the clearing. Distracted by the branches, he didn't notice Harry's golden wave of magic. It struck him and knocked him back onto the ground, where he hit his head with a thud. The branches, no longer stopped by his spells, ensured he did not get up again.

The other man was having more luck. He had conjured some kind of silver shield that stopped the branches from reaching him. The branches kept bouncing off; the pulse of Harry's magic had no effect. The man seemed rather relieved, but before he could cast any magic at the tree the ground started rumbling. Suddenly a pair of roots shot out of the ground, appearing behind the silvery shield, and wrapped around the man's legs. Harry didn't need to look to know what would happen to the man now. After one last crunch, the fight was over. The tree straightened back up to its original position and relaxed as though nothing had happened. Harry sent it a very grateful _thank you_ , and got a warm pulse in return that he took to be a "you're welcome."

The battle was over. Harry allowed himself a small smile and prepared to lie down for a well-earned rest when a faint voice caught his attention.

"H-h-help me!"


	4. Chapter 4: New Friends, New Allies

"H-h-help me!"

With a snap, the whimpered plea for help brought his attention back to the girl curled up on the ground. Shaking off his exhaustion Harry rushed over to her and knelt down by her side. Her eyes were closed (though tears were still running down her face), and she was shaking uncontrollably.

"It's going to be alright," he told her, trying to be as comforting as possible. "I'm going to help you."

She opened her eyes and looked at him fearfully. He tried to smile at her in a reassuring way – he'd never reassured anyone before though, so he didn't really know if it was going to work. She looked a little less afraid, and a lot more confused, which he guessed was an improvement.

"The… bad men are gone," he told her. "I'm going to try to fix your injuries. Just try to be still.

"W... who… who…" she stammered.

"I'm James," he told her. No sense in giving out his real name – he didn't want the police to know who he was, after all. They might try to send him back to the Dursleys again. And no doubt there would be police involved in this situation very soon.

"Wha… what… wha…?" she tried to ask.

"Shhh," he told her, having no idea what she was trying to say. "I'm going to try to fix you. We can talk when you get better."

She nodded (at least, he thought she did – it may have been just her trembling), and he started to work on her injuries. The most notable one was the broken leg. He had lots of experience with broken limbs so he started on that. In addition to his many injuries accumulated during his time with his relatives, he had a bit of a soft spot for pets, and had healed quite a few animals that had been struck by cars or beaten by their owners and left in the woods. Healing other animals was always a lot harder than healing himself, and took a lot out of him, but it was always worth it to see them up and walking again afterward.

Her left lower leg was bent almost completely sideways, with a large chunk of bone sticking out of her skin. Waving his hands over her knee, he tried to stop the pain first. She relaxed slightly.

"I need to straighten the bone before I put it back together. It's probably going to hurt a lot – I'm sorry," he told her. She nodded again.

As quickly as he could, he jerked the leg back to a straight position. She let out a small cry of pain, but stayed still. She was obviously a pretty strong person, he thought. Even he would have been hard-pressed not to pull away when doing that, and he'd broken more bones than he could count. The hard part over with, he pulled his magic into his hands and started _willing_ the bone to reform into its proper shape. Small pieces of bone returned to their correct place, and slowly the bone knit back together. After a few minutes, the bone was completely repaired. Next, he started to heal the area where the bone had cut through the skin. As with the bone, he sent some magic through his hands to her skin, which gradually knitted back together. He was careful to make sure that his magic also cleaned out the wound – he had seen that lots of time if he didn't do that, terrible infections would happen later. He'd almost lost his arm to an infection once, and had had a miserable few days before his magic was able to heal him.

When he was done, only a small pink scar remained where the wound had once been.

"Pretty good, yeah?" he said to her, giving her a tired smile. When he had finished healing her, he was going to have to sleep for a week. He was very glad that he'd just eaten a big meal the night before; otherwise he would have passed out by now for sure.

She gave him a shocked look. _Right,_ he reminded himself, _most people probably can't do that_.

"Sorry," he told her. "I probably should have warned you I was going to do that. But as long as you stay off that leg for a day or two, you should be OK."

"H-how d-d-did you d-do that?" she asked, still shaking considerably.

He shrugged, not really knowing the answer. "I've got some kind of magic powers, I guess. I've always been able to do stuff like this. Until today, I thought I was the only one, but those other men were doing something similar, so there must be other people like me after all."

"Are y-you a Mug…muggleb…muggleborn?" she asked.

"Sorry, a what?"

"You know," she said. "Raised by m-muggles."

"I don't know what muggles are, sorry," he said. For the first time he started to regret dropping out of school – obviously he was missing something important. While they talked, he had moved on to the cut on her arm, and summoned up some more of his depleted magic to repair the skin.

"Did your p-parents have m-magic too?" she asked.

He shrugged again. "Don't know. They died when I was a baby. My… relatives definitely didn't have magic, though," he told her. "They always called me a freak, so I think they may have known that I was different. Maybe they knew that my parents had these powers too, I don't know."

She was quiet for a few minutes while he repaired some smaller cuts and bruises on her body. She was still shaking though, so he eventually asked if she knew why.

"I think it was from the Cruciatus Curse," she told him.

"I don't know what that is, sorry."

"It's an Unforgiveable," she said. "The Torture Curse." He frowned.

"Are you one of these magic people, too?" he asked. She nodded. "Do you have one of those magic sticks?"

She looked confused for a moment, before her expression cleared.

"Do you m-mean a wand-d?" she asked, pointing at the stick that had been dropped a few feet away from her.

"A magic wand… that makes sense," he mused aloud. "Do you have a wand, then?"

She shook her head. "I don't g-g-get one until m-m-m… until I t-turn eleven," she said.

"Hmm," was all he said. He was surprised that there was a whole group of people who had magic, and apparently it was a different kind of power than his own. A magic wand sounded pretty cool, he thought, but he was privately glad that he was different from them too. Magic designed to torture people didn't sound very nice to him.

"I'm going to try to stop the shaking. This might feel a little weird," he warned her. She nodded once more, and he pushed some magic into her gently. She let out a soft gasp. He examined her with his magic, like he had with the men in the clearing earlier. Her magic was pale yellow, and was centered in her chest, just like his own. Unlike his power, which flowed smoothly around his body, hers was pulsing in agitation, beating in time with her shaking. He had never seen anything like it so he wasn't sure how to fix it. He sent a little magic into her magical center (she gasped again, but didn't seem to be in pain, so he ignored it). Gently, he _asked_ it to calm down, just like he had talked to the tree earlier. He sent a few waves of magic gently around her body, _willing_ her magic to follow smoothly. It did so, and after a few circuits it seemed to relax a little. Gradually, like ripples on a pond, it settled back down. When it pulsed smoothly, he withdrew his magic. He was glad to notice that the shaking had almost completely stopped; only a few trembles in her hands remained, and he decided that it was probably as good as he was going to get for the time being.

Done at last, he collapsed to the ground next to her. He was almost completely out of magic at this point, and his body was screaming at him to sleep. Shaking his head to clear the blackness that was gathering at the edge of his vision, he sat up with a grunt. Standing was probably beyond his capabilities for now, he realized.

"Are you alright?" Susie asked, sounding concerned.

He gave an exhausted smile. "I'll b'fine. Jus' tired," he managed. She watched him for a few moments.

"Thank you for saving me."

"Yerr welc'm," he slurred in reply, unable to must up the energy to say anything more.

They sat together in silence for a few minutes, before a thought struck his tired brain. The men in the clearing had been waiting for someone to show up. And Harry guessed it probably wasn't someone he wanted to meet. He gave his head a few shakes to clear some of the cobwebs from his mind.

"We have to leave," he told her urgently, some strength returning briefly to his voice. "They were supposed to meet someone here. We have to be gone before that happens."

She paled. "Oh no! My Aunty! I have to find her!"

"Your Aunt?" he asked. "Were you with her? What happened?"

"I was at home and they broke in and attacked us! I ran away, but some of them chased after me. I fell down a hill and broke my leg, and they caught me and dragged me here. I have to get back and find Aunty!"

"OK, OK," Harry said, trying to calm her down. "We'll go find what happened. Can you guide me to your house from here?"

She frowned, but eventually nodded. "I… I think so. I'm pretty sure I know which way to go."  
He stood roughly, desperately fighting off the dizziness that threatened to send him back to the ground. Crossing the clearing, he picked up his spear from where it had fallen to the ground. Without magic, it was all he would have for defense until he got a chance to rest up. Having retrieved it, he stopped for a moment by the body of the man he had killed at the beginning of the fight.

"Do you know them?" he asked Susan quietly.

She looked around and jumped – apparently she hadn't noticed the dead bodies strewn across the clearing. Her face took on a sickly green hue, but to her credit she did not actually get sick.

"They are Dark wizards – I don't think I've ever seen any of them before," she told him.

He knelt down awkwardly next to the fallen wizard. Something about him seemed… off. On an impulse, Harry pulled up the sleeve of the robe that the man wore. Looking closely he saw the borders of some kind of tattoo. It was faded, and almost invisible, but it looked like there was a picture of a snake coming out of a head, or a skull. Harry reached out to touch it, but the instant he put his finger on it, he detected a repulsive feeling of malice – like he had felt from the man earlier, but concentrated and even darker. He pulled his hand back as though scalded, and the feeling subsided.

"There's a mark here," he said to Susan. "Looks like a head with a snake coming out of it. It feels… evil. Have you seen it before?"

Her face paled. "The Dark Mark!"

"So you recognize it?"

She nodded. "It's the sign of You-Know-Who – a really bad Dark Wizard. The worst," she added, seeing his confused look.

"What kind of a name is You-Know-Who?" he said, chuckling. He must have a pretty stupid name if he didn't even want people to know what it was.

"We don't say his name," Susan whispered, looking around fearfully as though this mysterious man was going to pop out of the trees.

"Why not?"

"Bad things happen to people who said his name," she said quietly. "My parents said his name… and he killed them."

Harry winced. "I'm sorry," he said quickly, "I didn't realize…"

She gave him a sad smile. "It's OK. It was a long time ago. He's gone now though, thank Merlin. Or thank Harry Potter, I suppose," she amended, in an afterthought.

"H-Harry Potter?" he asked, nearly falling over in surprise. "Who is Harry Potter?"

"You don't – oh right, you live with Muggles," she said. "Harry Potter is the Boy-who-Lived! He defeated You-know-Who when he was only a baby."

Suddenly, a memory came to him unbidden. It was the flash of green light that featured prominently in several of his dreams, but there was a new feature – a high, cold, cruel laugh. Shaking his head, he asked,

"How did a baby defeat an evil wizard?"

Susan shrugged. "My Aunty says that when his parents died, they made some kind of protective magic that was able to stop You-Know-Who from killing him. No one really knows, though."

"What happened to Harry Potter?" he asked, hoping very sincerely that she was talking about a different boy whose name was Harry Potter who had magical powers and was orphaned as a baby.

"No one really knows. He survived the Killing Curse with only a scar on his head, and then he went to live with his muggle relatives. No one has seen him since."

"Oh," said Harry, extremely glad that his long hair covered the faded lightning-bolt scar on his forehead. "We should probably get moving – can you guide us to your Aunt's house from here?"

She nodded, and he helped her to her feet. She wobbled a bit, leaning on him heavily before she was able to steady herself. Apparently he hadn't done a very good job of repairing her leg, because she could barely walk on it. She continued leaning on him, but together they were able to limp out of the clearing.

"Where are your relatives, James?" Susan asked, once they had gotten underway. "Are they OK? Shouldn't they be here by now too? Did anything happen to them?"

He shook his head. "They are probably fine, I guess. I haven't seen them in ages, though. I was just looking for a good place to camp when I heard you screaming."

She looked concerned. "You were camping by yourself? Isn't that… dangerous?"

He couldn't help it – he laughed. "I'm pretty good at taking care of myself. I've been a lot safer since I left my relatives than I was when I lived with them."

"You live by yourself!" she exclaimed, aghast.

"Sure," he said with a shrug. "It's not so bad. The first year was pretty hard, but I think I do OK now."

"But… but… where do you sleep? What do you do for food?"

"I can sleep wherever I want, really. I usually just find a good group of trees and make a shelter there. In the summer it's easier, if it's not raining I can sleep almost anywhere. I just eat whatever food I can get – I'm pretty good at hunting now, and I know which plants are safe to eat. Sometimes I sneak back into my relatives' house in the winter if I can't find food – they don't even notice when things are gone. Winter is harder because I have to find some place where no one will see me make a fire. I've gotten caught a few times for that." He frowned, thinking darkly of the times that he'd been captured by the police and sent back to the Dursleys. Thinking about how the police had never believed him was enough to put him in a bad mood, so he quickly changed the subject.

"So is your Aunt a magic person, too?" he asked her.

She nodded. "She's the Deputy Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement," she told him. He didn't really know much about the government, really only what he could decipher from his Uncle's angry rants about taxes and immigrants and greedy politicians. Still, given his relative's extreme hatred of the word "magic" and everything related to it, he would have thought that a whole department about magical police would have been a subject of his ire at least once.

"I've seen lots of bobbies," he said, "but none of them ever used magic. What do they do, if they don't arrest criminals?"

She gave him a strange look. "They don't arrest muggles, silly. They only arrest witches and wizards."

"I see," he said, though he didn't really. "What are muggles, exactly?"

"People without magic," she informed him.

"Huh," was his eloquent reply. "Why didn't they catch the guys from earlier, then?"

She suddenly looked afraid, and it was clear he had said the wrong thing.

"I think they wanted to kill my Aunty because she's in charge of the Department. Oh, Merlin, what am I going to do? She's all I have left…" she burst into tears. Harry was at a loss.

"Umm, don't worry Susan, I'm sure she's fine; she's probably a great police woman, she's probably arrested all of the rest of them by now, you'll see," he rushed out, trying to reassure her. "She just had to take them all to jail, I bet that takes ages."

"She would have found me by now, she's dead, I know she's dead, what am I going to do…" she trailed off into sobs.

"Oh!" he said, remembering. "That guy they were supposed to meet back there, they said he was late because he'd probably been caught by some guy with Mad-Eyes. Do you know him? Is he your Uncle? If that guy got caught, I'm sure that means your Aunt probably arrested him and had to take him to jail." Harry was relieved that he had apparently found something to comfort her, because her sobs gradually trailed off.

"He saw Mad-Eye?" she asked, sounding hopeful.

"That's what he said," confirmed Harry, wishing he knew who or what a Mad-Eye was.

"If he was there, that must mean that Aunty was able to call for help," mumbled Susan. "She must be alive, she's just got to be!"

"That's the spirit!" said Harry, trying to be optimistic.

Susan seemed to be even more determined to get to her home now, and they moved as fast as they could through the woods.

"What's your last name, James?" she asked.

"Umm... Klinefelter," he said, saying the first name that came to mind – the name of the old librarian at the Surrey Public Library. "What's yours, Susie?"

"Susan," she corrected him. "Susan Bones."

"Susan, sorry," he corrected himself. "Where do you go to school, Susan?" he asked, curious about her. She was the first person he'd met in months, and the first person in many years that was actually nice to him. The rumors that the Dursleys started, combined with threats from Dudley's gang, ensured that he'd never actually had any friends before.

"I get tutored at home," she told him.

"What sort of subjects are you learning?" he asked. He was rather curious at what kinds of things he was missing out on.

"Well, since I don't have a wand I mostly do basic things. Potions theory, history, that sort of thing. Madame Fairchild – that's my tutor – she's really strict and makes me work on my reading and writing a lot. I hate spelling," said Susan.

"What about maths? And science?" asked Harry. He had actually liked both of those classes when he had been in school. Mostly because those were the ones Dudley hated the most, and anything Dudley hated had to be good for something.

"What are those?" Susan asked, sounding perplexed.

"You've never taken maths?" asked Harry, surprised.

"Well, yeah, I can add and subtract," Susan replied, "but I won't need anything else unless I take Arithmancy, and that's not until third year."

Harry stared at her. No maths? What kind of tutoring was this?

"What about science? Is that the same?"

"What's science?"

"You know, learning about nature and stuff. Rocks and plants and animals. Later on we learn about chemistry and physics, but those are for older kids I think," he told her.

"Oh, you mean Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures," she said, smiling as though he had made a joke. "Auntie's told me about some of the plants and animals around the manor, but mostly I'll learn about those at Hogwarts."

"Hogwarts?"

"You know, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?"

He shook his head. "Never heard of it. It's a pretty silly name if you ask me."

"How old are you?" she asked suddenly.

Thrown by the non-sequitur, he had to think for a moment before answering, "ten and a half, I think."

"So you haven't gotten your letter yet," she said knowingly, as though this solved everything.

"I've never gotten any letters at all, actually," he told her. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Hogwarts letters get sent out around your eleventh birthday," she informed him. "Since you grew up with Muggles, one of the teachers will probably bring your letter in person, so they can explain everything. It looks like you already know about magic, though, so it'll be easier for you, I think."

"So you think I might get invited to Hogwarts?" he asked, curious. "Even though I don't use magic wands?"

"There's only one kind of magic, as far as I know," she said. "Wandless magic is pretty rare, but Auntie Amelia can do a little. She uses her wand most of the time, though."

He opened his mouth to reply but suddenly froze when he heard voices in the distance. He motioned for Susan to stop and stay quiet. Magically enhancing his hearing, he heard them calling out for Susan.

"Someone's calling for you," he said, as she seemed to not hear the voices yet.

She opened her mouth, probably to yell, and he quickly covered her mouth with his hand.

"Wait!" he urged. "We don't know who they are yet. Let's just hide here for now – I think they're coming this way."

Nodding, she leaned back against a nearby tree, rubbing her leg with a slight wince.

"Sore?" he asked in a whisper.

She nodded again. He put an arm around her and she leaned into him gratefully. They stayed like that as the voices approached. Eventually, she stood up and pulled on his hand excitedly.

"That's Auntie Amelia! She's alright!"

Harry smiled at her, glad that things seemed to work out. The voices seemed anxious, upset, but not angry (he was intimately familiar with angry shouting, as that was the principal mode of communication from the Dursleys). Steadying Susan, he got up so they could walk toward her Aunt. He gave her a nod in response to her questioning look, and she immediately shouted,

"Auntie! Over here!"

The voices took on an excited tone. "Susan!" he heard faintly.

"I'm alright!" cried Susan. Together, she and Harry limped as best they could toward the searchers. Susan's leg was apparently bothering her more than she let on, and Harry had long since passed the point of complete exhaustion, so progress was slow. It took several minutes of yelling back and forth before they finally neared Susan's aunt. Around her were more wizards wearing robes and carrying wands.

When Susan had said she lived with her aunt, he had immediately pictured a robe-wearing Aunt Petunia. So he was surprised to see that Susan's aunt was considerably older than his relatives – her hair was mostly grey, and her face was lined with wrinkles. It probably didn't help that she had a small cut along one cheek that was dripping blood down her face, or that her robes were burnt and torn in multiple places. But she seemed genuinely relieved to see Susan, and her smile made her look much more pleasant than his Aunt Petunia ever had.

Once they got close enough, Susan made to run over to her Aunt, but apparently they had just now noticed Harry, and all of the other wizards pointed their sticks at him warily. Harry would have put his hands up, but one was currently supporting Susan and the other was tightly gripping his spear to keep them both upright.

"It's OK," Susan said placatingly. She seemed to trust these wizards, so Harry decided they were probably alright. "This is James. He rescued me."

All but one of them lowered their wands slightly. The one who didn't drew Harry's attention, and he had to hold in a gasp of surprise. The man was horribly scarred – and clearly not from the recent fighting. Other than a few burnt patches on his robes, he seemed untroubled by today's battle. But his face and hands looked like he had been mauled by a bear or wolf on multiple occasions. And beneath one of the burnt patches on his robes, he could see the tip of what looked like a real peg-leg! A large chunk was missing from his nose, and one of his eyes was clearly fake – vivid blue and as round as a coin, it spun around in its socket independent of his other eye. 'This must be Mad-Eye,' he realized with a start.

The man looked as though he expected an attack at any moment. Harry was hardly surprised; it was obvious he'd seen more than his fair share. He looked like a man who knew how to survive, and Harry suspected that this was a man he could respect.

He was distracted from his examination of the scarred man by Susan's Aunt, who was likewise examining him warily.

"Are you alright, Susan?" asked her Aunt. "What happened?"

Susan took a breath before starting to explain. "I'm OK now. I tried to run away when they attacked the house, but some of them chased after me. One of them hit me with a curse and broke my leg – it's better now, though," she said. "Anyway, they were… they kept hitting me with curses and… they were talking about how they were going to take me away once the rest of them got back from…" she broke off, her voice breaking. Sensing that she didn't want to relieve the story any further, Harry spoke up for the first time.

"I was nearby camping when I heard screaming. I went toward it and found those men hurting her. They didn't want to leave, so I attacked them. They're all dead now," he said quietly, exhaustion leaking into his tone despite his best efforts.

Her aunt and the other men looked at each other in alarm. "Who killed them?" asked one wizard.

"I did," Harry said, not seeing any other choice but to tell the truth. "Well, a tree helped, too, but I guess mostly it was me. I was the one who woke up the tree."

They looked skeptical, which probably wasn't surprising if he thought about it. He was only ten and a half, and had just said he killed a bunch of adults with a tree. Not the most believable story he'd ever heard, either. Then he realized that he was going to be in real trouble with the bobbies this time. No good deed goes unpunished, he thought – it was a phrase he heard his teacher say once, and right now he couldn't think of a better way to describe his life than that.

One of them looked like he was going to say something, but Susan spoke up in his defense.

"It's true. They're definitely dead. And one of them had… he had…" Her voice lowered and she looked around furtively, as though expecting one of them to burst through the trees at any moment. "He had the Dark Mark, Auntie!"

The group didn't look very surprised, but there were some angry frowns. Not their first encounter with that Mark, Harry thought. Probably a well-known group of criminals.

"Nasty piece of work, that is," Harry chimed in. "Felt… wrong. Black magic. I wouldn't want to run into another one of those people."

"You felt it, then?" Mad-Eye asked. "How'd you pull that one off? You look a bit young for diagnostic spells, lad." He seemed honestly curious, and didn't seem to be doubting Harry's version of the story yet, which made him inexplicably relieved.

"I just… reached out and felt it with my magic," Harry replied. "I think I must be a different kind of wizard from you guys. I don't use one of those magic wands, or cast spells. At least, not the bright colored ones I saw the other people – wizards, I mean – shooting at me."

"You used your magic to fix up Susan, then? I doubt the Death Eaters would bother to fix up the broken leg she mentioned," Mad-Eye said.

Harry nodded.

"It was a nasty break – went right through the skin. I put the bone back together, but she'll need to keep off of it for a couple of days. I fixed the rest of her injuries as best I could, too, but she should probably see a doctor just in case. There was one spell that made her shake a lot afterward, and I don't think I completely got rid of that either. I've never seen anything like it before, and I was getting tired," he said defensively, not wanting them to think he had deliberately given anything less than his best.

Her Aunt looked back to Susan in concern. Susan gulped and tightened her grip around his waist. Harry gave her what he hoped was a comforting squeeze in return.

"It was… the _Cruciatus_ , Auntie," Susan whispered.

Her Aunt – and several of the Aurors – gasped. The motion drew Harry's attention to one of the Aurors. He had reacted like the others, but something seemed… off about him. His reaction was delayed, as though he was only pretending. Harry resolved to keep an eye on him, but now Mad-Eye was speaking.

"Well this has been a lovely reunion, but we've had enough standing around. There may be more o' the bastards running about. And this kid looks like he's about ready to fall over, so I doubt he'll be gettin' any more trees to help us out this time."

"What happened to your parents, James?" asked Susan's Aunt (Harry really wished he knew her name now).

"Oh, they died when I was a baby," he answered. "I used to live with my Aunt and Uncle, but they didn't want me so I left. Now I live by myself. I was walking around when I ran into the magic fence around your property – sorry about that," he added sheepishly. "I was going to explore and look around a bit to figure out why I couldn't teleport anymore when I heard Susan screaming. Then I just ran toward her and…" he waved a hand around, not feeling up to explaining the whole situation again.

"Teleporting, eh?" Mad-Eye said with what sounded like approval in his tone. "Apparating at your age, and wandless magic to boot. You'd probably make a better Auror than half the force we've got now, and that's without a wand at all! I've half a mind to retire now and make you my replacement!" His mutilated face contorted into a position that Harry thought must be a smile. It was truly terrifying.

"Does the peg leg come with the position?" Harry wondered. A round of laughter greeted this thought, and too late he realized that, accustomed as he was to being alone, he had actually spoken aloud. Amongst the laughter, his eye again was drawn to the wizard who had reacted slowly last time. Again, his reaction seemed delayed, forced somehow. Harry, reluctant though he was to use more of his depleted power, felt this was suspicious enough to feel with his magic.

A tendril sluggishly reached up his body to his eyes. As magic became visible, the world changed. Colors exploded into view, swirling and glowing all around his body. Trees pulsed with life, and the life-force of the people across from him seemed to shine like the sun. The wizard he was examining immediately drew his attention. It seemed… off, and it took him a moment to understand why.

There seemed to be _two_ of the man, somehow. Another life force – fainter, like an echo – seemed to be wrapped around the man's energy, clouding it. It pierced into his core, for purposes unknown. But although it was faint, it was still easy for Harry to recognize the black magic of the dark mark on that magic. 'Mind control?' he wondered, quickly shutting off his magic vision before anyone could notice anything wrong. Suddenly very worried, Harry tried to put surreptitiously put his body between the man and Susan. His attempt at subtlety failed miserably when he staggered with exhaustion and leaned heavily onto Susan's shoulder. She let out an 'oof!' of surprise, barely managing to keep them upright.

Susan's Aunt asked him, "Are you alright?" but he waved her off, not wanting to let the strange man out of his sight. Mad-Eye noticed his intent, and turned toward the man as well. Perhaps sensing that he had been caught, or just not wanting to risk the element of surprise while he still had some on his side, the man snapped his wand toward Susan's Aunt.

" _Avada Kedavra_!" he yelled. A beam of bright green light rushed toward her, a sickly, horribly empty feeling reaching all the way across the clearing and chilling Harry down to his bones. Shaking himself into action, Harry _pushed_ with all his remaining strength, mustering just enough power to send Susan's Aunt stumbling back a few steps. It was sufficient for the green beam to pass her by, but Harry didn't notice. Immediately after casting that spell, he turned toward Susan. Mad-Eye had sent a red spell at the man, Harry noticed, but the other man either didn't notice or didn't care. His wand twirled, but he didn't shout anything this time. Still, a purple beam of light shot at Susan.

Harry wanted to _push_ Susan away like he had her Aunt, but he had nothing left. Utterly exhausted, he did the only thing he could think of. He physically shoved Susan out of the way and leapt (or, more accurately, fell clumsily) in front of the spell, hoping that his body would absorb it and prevent it from hitting Susan. A sharp pain – worse than anything he had ever felt at the Dursleys – bloomed across his side, before he hit the ground with a painful thud. Before he could truly register this new pain, his head smacked against the dirt, and everything went black.


	5. Chapter 5: Family Matters

A/N: First of all, let me give a huge thank you to everyone who has read my story. I've been amazed at how positive this story's reception has been. A particular thank you to everyone who has reviewed – you guys are the best!

A few quick notes before I get back to the story. First, apologies for taking so long to upload this chapter. It is almost entirely dialogue, which made it a bit dull to write compared to the more action-packed opening chapters. It is important to the plot, though, and the next chapter will contain considerably more interesting material. I will, however, try my hardest to keep Harry from being overly powerful or super mature. The opening chapters were quite dramatic, but he's not going to be mowing down hordes of Death Eaters with his bare hands like some kind of wizard ninja. I don't want to give away the plot, but I am not going to simply rehash the events in canon. Things are just too different to unfold the way they do in the books. Instead, I'll be headed in a different direction. For fans of the books, it may be disappointing that some characters will be reduced or absent, but I feel that it will allow me to take a broader look at the wizarding world. I will also be for the most part ignoring anything that has been revealed outside the books themselves. Pottermore is fine, but a lot of things in there don't fit with where I'm trying to take the series. So if there's some obscure wizarding character or event that I'm ignoring… well, you've been warned, so you can't get too upset about it.

Lastly, the usual disclaimer: I own none of this material. JK Rowling is a better author than I could ever hope to be, and the HP universe belongs completely to her.

Now, back to the story!

The first thing Harry noticed when he awoke was the smell. Wherever he was, he noticed, smelled quite clean. For someone accustomed to the scents of the wilderness it was actually unpleasant; the detergent-like quality of the air stung his nostrils and made him want to sneeze. Suppressing this urge directed his attention to the next problem – now that he thought of it, his head was pounding fiercely. A cacophony of little noises slowly began to pierce his foggy mind. A murmur of voices, a strange beeping sound, a door opening and closing… the sounds grew louder with every passing moment. Eventually it was too much and he decided he would have to open his eyes.

He immediately regretted that decision. Bright light stabbed into his eyes like icepicks right into his face. His eyes slammed shut reflexively, but not before his headache seemed to double in intensity. A groan of discomfort escaped his chapped lips. Before he could completely register what was going on, a voice (far too loud for his tastes) spoke up.

"Ah, good, you're awake."

It sounded like an elderly woman, certainly no one he recognized. His brain sluggishly attempted to come up with a suitable response, but she continued after only a moment, long before he could come up with anything coherent.

"Welcome back to the land of the living, James. You gave us all quite a fright, you know."

"Hungh," he managed. It didn't sound at all like "Where am I?" which was what he intended, but she seemed to get the point.

"You're at St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries," the voice told him. "You've been unconscious for almost three days now."

"Three days!" is what he meant to say. What came out was "Thrfergrdgz." It would have to be close enough.

"Yes, you were badly exhausted when you got here. You had lost a good bit of blood as well. Nasty curse, that, but we patched you up shortly after you got here. You've just been resting since."

Resting. That sounded very nice to him right now. Some questions started to form in his brain, but every time he tried to ask them they slipped from his grasp. His head felt increasingly heavy, and thoughts were becoming more difficult.

"You should be up and about in a few more days, never you worry. Madame Bones should be along soon to talk with you about…"

That was all Harry heard before the sounds faded away again and he slipped back into sleep.

When Harry awoke the second time, he felt considerably better. His head was still pounding but his mind didn't feel quite so muddled. It helped that when he finally dared to open his eyes, the room around him was blissfully dark. He was content to just lie in the bed for quite some time, slowly adjusting to consciousness again. Eventually, he felt awake enough to take a look around his new surroundings. He conjured a ball of light in his hand to illuminate the room. The light was dimmer than he expected – evidently his magic had yet to fully recover, even after several days – but it served its purpose well enough.

The room was surprisingly luxurious. The bed he was currently laying on was the largest he'd ever seen, with crisp white sheets and numerous fluffy pillows. On one side was a small bedside stand. A cup of water and a small metallic device of uncertain significance sat innocently on the surface; other than those two things, it was bare. On the other side of his bed was a pair of plain wooden chairs and a round table. The table had a pile of brightly-wrapped packages of all shapes and sizes. The final things he noticed were a pair of clocks and a calendar on the wall.

The calendar was not very remarkable, telling him the date (March 16th, 1991) in a soft green hue. One clock was relatively normal as well, that same gentle green color informing him that it was 2:37 A.M. The other, however, had what appeared to be little medicine bottles on it; when he squinted he could read little numbers next to them counting down. To what, he didn't know; perhaps those were the medicines he was supposed to take? He'd never taken medicine before, so he didn't know.

"I wish I could ask someone about what all this stuff is," he mused to himself quietly.

Accustomed as he was to being alone, he hardly noticed that he had spoken aloud. His thoughts were interrupted when the little metal object on his bedside table suddenly beeped at him and began emitting a flashing red light. Startled, Harry tried to turn it off, but there didn't appear to be an easy off switch.

"How may I help you…James?" A soft voice rang out from the object in his hand.

"Ah!" Harry yelped. Why was this thing talking to him? Was it some kind of radio? How did it know his name?

Finding no clear buttons or knobs to turn, Harry tried smacking it against the tabletop. It didn't work the first time, but he tried it again three or four more times, to be sure. Sadly, these attempts were just as futile as the first.

The door to the room opened and someone poked their head inside.

"Did you need something, dearie?" A friendly voice asked him. It sounded like a young woman, but again he didn't recognize them.

Harry sat there in the bed awkwardly holding the metal object in his hand. Once the door opened it had gone silent once more, leaving him feeling quite silly.

"Erm," he stammered, "this thing… it beeped… but it's off now…"

"Oh yes," the woman replied, "that's to contact us nurses if you need anything. You are allowed to talk into it, you know." He flushed in embarrassment. He had been scared by a fancy telephone.

"Not to worry, they told us you're new to this sort of thing," she said with a smile. The door opened and she came into the room fully. Bright lights flickered on as soon as she crossed the threshold, and it took Harry a moment to blink the stars out of his eyes. She was very pretty, Harry noticed, with golden-brown hair and bright blue eyes. She was dressed in an all-white robe with a little image of a wand crossed over a bone over her heart.

"So, what was it that you needed? Something to drink?"

Harry shook his head. "I didn't really mean to say anything. I just wondered what's going on…" he trailed off, feeling silly.

"Yeah, they said you were pretty out of it last time you woke up. Well, let me welcome you again to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries!" She made a very grand gesture with her arms that made Harry giggle.

"I'm Melody, by the way," she introduced herself. He was spared the need to give her a fake name when she continued on,

"This'll be your fourth day here; you were completely magically exhausted when you came in and had lost quite a bit of blood. We got the curse taken care of in a jiffy, you'll have a bit of a scar but nothing more than that. You should be able to get out of here soon, actually; you seem a lot stronger now than you were when you woke up."

"I feel a lot better," he admitted sheepishly. He had only vague memories of waking up before, but what he could remember was certainly not going to be amongst his finer moments.

"It'll be a shame to see you go," Melody said. "We don't usually see kids in this wing – not that that's a bad thing," she added hurriedly. At his questioning look, she explained.

"You're in the special spell-damage wing dedicated for Aurors. We see a lot of nasty curse damage up here, so I wouldn't want to see kids here. But Madame Bones managed to pull some strings to get you up here when you got attacked at her house. Rough business, that," she shook her head.

Harry opened his mouth to point out that it was more along the lines of him doing the attacking, but decided that that might be unwise. Best not say anything about it if he didn't have to.

"So," she started again, the smile back on her face as if by magic, "you get to experience one of our standard Auror rooms! A touch nicer than the regular rooms, if I do say so myself. They aren't fancy, but they are bigger, and private, which is lovely. No other patients to bother you in here. Plus it looks like you've got some admirers," her grin widened as she gestured to the table full of parcels.

"Erm… what are those?" he asked curiously.

"Presents!" she exclaimed.

"From who?" Harry replied, baffled. He didn't know anyone who would send him presents.

"Well, Madame Bones and her niece Susan made sure to get you something; little Susan's been spending quite a bit of time here, you know," Melody winked at him. Harry stared at her, bemused. He had no idea why she was winking, Susan had seemed quite nice to him. The only other time he could remember being winked at was when Dudley had first figured out how to do it when he was six. He would always wink at Harry before trying to beat him up, and although Harry was quite certain that wasn't how winking was supposed to work it was never something he'd really mastered.

"I think quite a few DMLE people sent you things as well," Melody continued. "Mostly candy, probably, so don't go too crazy and try to eat it all at once. Healer's orders!" She winked again, but Harry was too busy marveling that he had some candy of his own to try to puzzle out why she kept winking.

"I've never had candy before," he mused softly, torn between the selfish desire to eat immediately in case it was taken away and the pragmatic side of him which said to hide it away for when he really needed the energy.

" _Never_?!" Melody was aghast. "What kind of kid never eats candy?"

Harry shrugged. "Never got any," he didn't offer anything more than that. Melody was still staring in wide-eyed shock. She shook her head and a smile popped back on her face.

"Well, now you've got plenty. But we're getting distracted. What else did you want to know? I shouldn't keep you up too much longer, you need your rest."

Harry looked at the clock. To his surprise, it was after 3 in the morning. Sleep did sound like a good idea.

"Will I get to leave tomorrow?" he asked instead. The rest of his questions could wait.

She sighed. "It's not up to me. Your primary Healer will let you know when she sees you in the morning. Also I know that Madame Bones wants to talk to you as well. She'll let you know."

He nodded slowly, fatigue settling back in. Melody noticed his drowsiness and, after showing him how to use the call device if he needed anything, bade him a final 'goodnight.' Harry sat back and instantly sleep overtook him once more.

The third time seemed to be the charm when it came to waking up. It was clearly daytime, judging by the amount of light in the room, but his headache was almost completely resolved. Harry stretched and sat up in bed.

"JAMES!" a voice screeched. Before he could even register being shouted at, a body jumped onto his bed and pulled him into a death grip.

"Susan!" scolded a woman that Harry recognized as Susan's Aunt.

And sure enough, the girl currently attempting to administer death-by-hugging was a blushing Susan, who pulled away from him apologetically.

"Sorry, James," she said quickly. "I'm so glad you're OK!"

"Me too," he told her with a smile, even as he rubbed the sore spot on his side where they curse had struck him. "You seem to be much better now too."

"The Healers were really amazed, they said you must have had Healer training to fix me so well," Susan said excitedly.

Harry just shrugged. "Lots of practice, I guess."

Before Susan could answer, her Aunt cut in.

"I, too, am glad to see you recovered. Unfortunately, Susan, I need to have a talk with James here as soon as possible. I'm sure you'll have lots of time to catch up after, but this really cannot wait."

Susan nodded solemnly, which made Harry a bit nervous. Was he about to be arrested? She did flash him a quick smile before she made her way out of the room. The sound of the door closing behind her sounded ominous to Harry's ears. He turned towards her Aunt, now fully appreciating how intimidating she was. She had cleaned up since their first meeting, and was wearing very fancy-looking robes with an insignia on the chest; a wand crossed with a sword, atop a shield. There were some words underneath that Harry did not get a chance to read before his attention was drawn to her face. She had a stern look that made Harry's stomach drop. It was the one his teachers always wore when they thought he was cheating.

"Erm… hello?" he offered. To his relief, she relaxed somewhat.

"Good morning," she replied, the faintest hint of a smile appearing on her face. "I know we were never formally introduced. My name is Amelia Bones, and I am head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. I apologize for sending Susan outside so soon, but there is an issue that I need to discuss before anyone else gets here. Keeping the story straight, as it were."

"Okay…" he said slowly.

"So," she began, a smirk growing at one corner of her mouth. " _James_. Would you like me to call you James, or is there another name that you prefer to go by?"

"James is fine!" he squeaked. He tried to cover for himself by grabbing the cup of water he saw on the nightstand and taking a huge gulp. Most of it ended up missing his mouth, but he did manage to refrain from coughing. Small victories, he told himself.

"You know," she said, still smirking ever-so-slightly, "you _do_ look like a James. Why, put some glasses on you and you'd be a perfect lookalike for a James I used to know. And, wouldn't you know it, he had a son about your age. A son who, as it turns out, has mysteriously been missing for the past several years. Strange coincidence, wouldn't you say?"

"Yeah, weird," Harry said faintly.

"It is indeed," she agreed. "And wouldn't you know it, Harry _James_ Potter has been missing for the past several years. A boy who fits your exact description, down to the distinctive curse scar on your forehead. The only question now, _Harry_ , is: what exactly are we going to do now?"

Silence hung over them for a long moment. Harry briefly contemplated making a run for it before discarding the idea. He didn't know where he was, had no supplies, and was surrounded by an unknown number of wizards of unknown motivations and skills. His shoulders slumped.

"Are you going to send me to jail?" he asked, resigned to his fate. It was that or back to the Dursleys, which was just a longer road to the jail.

"No, I am not going to take you to jail," she said comfortingly. He only had time for a quick sigh of relief before she continued. "However, we are in a very…delicate situation. Susan told me that your real name came up in conversation?"

He nodded.

"Well, Harry Potter is our world's celebrity. He saved us from Voldemort all those years ago. The issue is that, for security reasons, only a very select few people knew where he was placed after his parents were killed. So most people don't even know that Harry Potter was sent to live with his non-magical relatives. They especially do not know that Harry Potter was mistreated and left to fend for himself for the past several years. I know only because I am the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. I and several others searched for months, but no trace was ever found. We may have had better luck if we mobilized more resources, but that would have opened up the risk of the secret getting out. And that would have been disastrous."

"You see, Harry, there are a lot of Dark Wizards – like the ones you faced at my home – who are very angry about their master's defeat at your hands a decade ago. If they knew you were alone somewhere in the muggle world they would stop at nothing to attack you in revenge. Once you were outside the protective wards – a powerful defensive magic," she explained at his look of confusion, "you were vulnerable. Secrecy was the best hope for safety that we had."

"But now it's not secret anymore?" he asked tentatively.

She sighed. "Unfortunately, keeping the entire incident secret would be impossible. It was simply too high-profile an attack to be swept under the rug. Fortunately," the small smirk was back on her face, "fortunately as a Department Head I have some leeway over the exact details of the situation. So we have two options available to us. One is to be completely honest about the situation. An investigation into the attack will reveal that a young boy stumbled onto my property, killed four dark wizards, and saved my niece and myself. Your true name and story will doubtless be uncovered and the public will find out in short order. Harry Potter defeating four grown wizards would be the biggest news event of the year - of the last five years, likely. Your entire life story will be dug up and plastered in all of the papers. Worse, once people find out you live alone, everyone will demand that you be adopted into a _proper_ wizarding family. Some of those families will be people who supported the man who killed your parents, and want to exploit your fame and family's titles. And many people will be extremely angry at your mistreatment at the hands of your relatives, and relations with non-magical people will become dangerously tense. Things would be… unpleasant, I suppose you could say."

Harry's head was swirling again. People finding his life story didn't sound very appealing to him. Being adopted into a family that only wanted him for his fame – fame he hadn't even known he had – didn't seem fun either.

"What else can we do?" he asked, trying to come to grips with everything he'd been told.

"Now, I know that this is a lot of information to dump on you at once," she said apologetically. "But we need to act quickly, to prevent all that from happening – if you don't want it to, that is," she added. He gave a nod of assent.

"Our other option requires a bit of cooperation on your part. What we can say is that the deaths of the wizards in question occurred at the hands of Auror Moody, a renowned Auror with many victories under his belt. Your identity as Harry Potter will be kept a classified secret known only within my department, and your involvement will be downplayed to prevent you from having to give a testimony to the Wizengamot – the court. The public report will make no mention of you, but unofficially, Harry Potter will have been growing up with me all along. Your identity and location were kept secret for your protection and ours."

"So you're saying I should tell people I grew up with you?" he asked in shock. Lying didn't seem like a nice thing to do, although it might be easier than letting everyone find out the truth... Harry's head was starting to hurt again with all of these new revelations.

"If that's the option you want to take," she corrected. "Personally I think it would be much easier than the alternative, but it is your choice."

"Wouldn't everyone wonder why nobody ever saw me at your house?"

She chuckled. "I suppose you wouldn't know. My brother and most of his family were killed by Voldemort only a few months before he took your parents as well." She waved off his apologies.

"They were friends of your parents, in fact. But after their deaths, I became very concerned about security. I take the defense of my remaining family very seriously, and have a reputation for being a bit secretive. No one would be surprised to find that I had hidden Harry Potter away over the years. If you don't mind me saying so, it is the perfect cover story – your parents were friends with my brother and his wife, and I am head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, so the idea that your parents would trust me to help look after you would make perfect sense to most people."

"Would I have to live with you, then?" he asked. Having a home sounded oddly constricting after years of complete freedom.

"Well, that does bring up another point," she said. "You will doubtless be getting your Hogwarts letter in a few months' time – your invitation to a very prestigious magical school, attended by most of Britain's finest witches and wizards. Both of your parents went there. People expect you to be there next school year."

"A school for magic?" he said in surprise. It sounded… well, it sounded magical. "How do you know I'll be invited, though?"

She laughed. "You are more powerful than anyone I've ever seen at your age. Trust me, you'll be invited. Would you like to go?"

"Yes!" he said eagerly. He had always missed school, but never figured out how to go.

"Well, then, you may need to learn certain… skills, before you go," she said delicately. "Things like reading and writing and other things that people will expect that you would learn growing up in a magical household. I would be happy to teach you if you would like to live with us."

"Wait," he stopped as a thought suddenly occurred to him. "I don't have any money, I'm not sure I could afford to go to a fancy wizard school…" he said sadly.

"Your parents left you more than enough money," she reassured him. "And in any case, I would be happy to have you live with us. If nothing else, I owe you my life, and that of my niece. This is the least I can do to repay you."

Harry thought about it for a full minute. If everyone found out the truth, he'd likely be adopted anyway, probably by someone who didn't even care about him. This way he'd likely be with someone who seemed to be pretty nice. He could always leave again if he needed. He made up his mind.

"What do I have to do if I want to stay with you?"

She smiled. "You don't have to do much. Feel free to continue going by James, if you like. I will explain things to Susan and then go file the appropriate paperwork to make everything official. After you're cleared we'll work on getting you settled into your new home. Oh, and one more thing," she added as an afterthought. "I suppose that, for the sake of consistency, you should start calling me Aunt Amelia."

He grinned at her before trying it out. "OK… Aunt Amelia." It sounded strange on his tongue, but felt better than "Aunt Petunia" ever had.

True to her word, a few hours later he was told that he was healthy enough to leave by a gruff, tired-looking man in lime-green robes. Susan and her Aunt had come to escort him out, and had been joined by some familiar faces – 'Mad-eye' Moody and an olive-skinned woman Harry recognized as being present that day as well, who introduced herself as Eugenia Papadakis. A new nurse helped him put all of his candy and gifts into a bag (but only after Moody insisted on personally testing each one to ensure they weren't cursed, a process which Harry found absolutely fascinating). Finally, after explaining that they would get home via 'Apparition', which was the proper name for his teleporting ability, Aunt Amelia took his arm and with a 'pop', they were away to his brand-new home.


	6. Chapter 6: Diagon Alley, part 1

A/N: Apologies to all my followers for the delay. Part 2 will be out this weekend. Although I'll be beginning to break away from canon even more heavily from this point on, it all ultimately belongs to JKR. She's the bomb. Now, on with the story!

Life at the Ossuary (the Bones' ancestral home) was a strange experience for Harry. For starters, it was not just Susan and her Aunt. What remained of the extended Bones family all resided there – Susan and her Aunt were joined by a great-Aunt and uncle; several cousins of varying degrees; Susan's wizened old great-grandmother; and two whole separate families, the Coopers and the Baileys, who used to be what Aunt Amelia "vassal families" but were now apparently just close friends. They were visited frequently by various other families and friends who would often stay for days at a time.

The house was nothing at all like what he remembered of Number 4, Privet Drive. It was huge – a true manor. With three floors and a large basement (and real dungeons below that!), it took Harry days just to learn his way around the place. There was a ballroom, a huge dining room with a table that looked as though it could seat at least fifty people, a potions lab, a 'dueling chamber' which Harry and Susan weren't allowed into without an adult present, and a very fancy entranceway with lots of statues and talking portraits along the walls. In the main building there were twelve bedrooms, each with its own bathroom.

The manor itself was shaped rather like an old castle, with thick stone walls around the outside and towers on each corner. In the center there was a small courtyard with a little garden and stone fountain that Harry quite liked. The Southern Tower had a little observatory area set up with telescopes for stargazing. Attached to one side of the manor was the East Wing, which was where the Coopers and the Baileys lived.

Harry found endless amusement in thinking about how much the status-driven Dursleys would have given just to set foot in this house, and now he was living there! His new bedroom was bigger than his Aunt and Uncle's bedroom, and a lot fancier. There was a huge four-poster bed with thick blue hangings and sheets that was even softer than his bed at the hospital had been. He had his own desk to work at, a big wardrobe (Susan had squealed in delight when Aunt Amelia told him they would have to shop for a whole new set of clothes for him), and an even bigger bookshelf. All of the furniture was made from solid oak, as he discovered when attempting to lift his nightstand to try to find a silver coin he had dropped beneath it one day.

As if trying to find his way around and adjust to having his own home wasn't enough, he also had to get used to the fact that it was a _magic_ house. The many portraits all moved and spoke; they could even visit each other's frames, often following him throughout the house to talk with him. The secret passages Susan showed him were really cool, albeit confusing – one of them went up two flights of stairs, but came out on the same floor they went in on. There were suits of armor that could walk around, mirrors that gave advice, fireplaces that you could walk through, and all sorts of other oddities.

There were downsides to life at the Bones's, though. Harry was baffled by the lack of electricity. There were no light switches, no televisions, no computers. The building was heated only by fireplaces, making the stone floors almost painfully cold to touch in the chill morning air. With all of the portraits, talking mirrors, and various relatives trying to interrogate him, Harry had hardly a moment to himself. And although it was a new luxury to not have to catch and cook his own food, Aunt Amelia was rather strict about what he was eating. Evidently the Healers had mentioned to her that he was slightly underweight for someone of his age, and Amelia decided that this would not do at all. So he was assigned a strict regimen including lots of fruits and vegetables; the sweets he had been given in the hospital were confiscated and only given to him on 'special occasions'. Truth be told, it was not dissimilar to his regular diet, but something about having easy access to food and not being allowed to eat what he wanted was irritating. On top of it all, he could not even sleep at night – his soft bed proven a bit _too_ soft for someone accustomed to sleeping on the ground outdoors, and he tossed and turned for hours before falling into a fitful sleep.

And then there were the classes. Aunt Amelia had given him only three days to adjust before starting his lessons. She had been quite pleased that he knew how to read, although she was not nearly as pleased as he was when, after going out and recovering his pack containing all of his possessions, he showed her his prized dictionary. Apparently it wasn't suitable reading material for a child his age, whatever that meant. And even he had to admit, his handwriting _was_ terrible. Susan's neat, elegant script made him feel very inadequate indeed, but no matter how hard he tried to mimic her, the exercises he was given made his hands cramp up and his head ache miserably.

Harry normally found history to be interesting, but all the names and dates and magical events they wanted him to remember were making his head spin. He had briefly been interested in the genealogies they showed him about the Potter family throughout the ages, but was soon lost again when they told him he would eventually have to remember the ones for a whole bunch of different families as well. And there were all kinds of rules about 'proper' behavior. It was painfully clear that Harry knew none of them, and though neither Susan nor his Aunt Amelia had said anything about it, some of the portraits had made clear that they thought him some sort of barbarian. He had heard similar comments during his time with the Dursleys; as much as he wanted to pretend that all that was behind him, the words stung more than he cared to admit.

Harry's only respite from the strange new world he found himself lost in was the Bones family property. They had over a thousand acres, he had been told, of which half was completely untouched forest. The land was saturated with magic thanks to a ley line which ran under the nearby mountains, and the heavy wards which had been up for centuries made it fertile breeding grounds for magical plants and animals found in only a few places in the Isles. Harry took Sam with him on hikes that often lasted long into the night. He was technically given a strict curfew, but Harry had given up on following it once he found that Aunt Amelia often worked well into the night herself and so was not following it either. Harry had learned quickly to leave a note whenever he went out, as the Bones had kicked up a huge fuss when he had slipped out for an afternoon and missed supper. Missing one meal meant little to him, but the incessant yelling and Stinging Hexes cast at his bum by his new Great-Aunt Bronda had irked him so much that it was not risking again.

Between his classes, exploring his new home territory, and getting to know his new adopted family, time seemed to fly by. Before he knew it, Susan had celebrated her eleventh birthday and shortly thereafter received her Hogwarts acceptance letter, which meant it was time for the traditional Diagon Alley shopping trip. Aunt Amelia had taken the day off from work to take both of them to magical Britain's main commercial area. A single Auror was joining them, a pleasant young fellow named Osmond McGreery.

"Are you ready for your first trip into the world, James?" Susan asked him excitedly. They had been informed firmly by Aunt Amelia that no one was to refer to him as Harry when in public unless absolutely necessary, for 'security' reasons.

"For the hundredth time, _yes_ ," an exasperated Harry replied.

"Isn't it _wonderful_?" Susan practically squealed, making increasingly wild hand gestures with every passing sentence. "I haven't gotten to go to the Alley in _ages_! I can't wait to see it. And I get my own wand! A real wand, not some cheap practice one!"

"I'm happy for you," Harry told her. And he was. He still felt like an outsider in many ways, but even he could see why this was so important to her. Harry was banned from teaching Susan any wandless magic after one of her earliest attempts at a wandless summoning charm resulted in a destroyed fountain and a pair of very embarrassed, very wet ten-year-olds. Their Aunt had not been pleased.

"We'll get wands together! Then we'll see who's the best at magic," she gave him a challenging sort of smirk.

"I still think I won't find a wand that will want to match me," Harry pointed out.

"You aren't the first to think it, James, but rest assured that Ollivander will find you something. He's never failed a customer in all his years." Aunt Amelia reassured him. Before he could argue back, Harry and Susan were herded to the fireplace to Floo to Diagon Alley. Auror McGreery went first to clear the area, followed by a hyperactive Susan. Harry carefully tossed a pinch of Floo powder into the fire, shouted "Diagon Alley!" and was whisked away in a nauseating swirl of color and light.

He stumbled out of the fireplace (despite practicing with the Bones', he had yet to master the exceedingly unpleasant form of transportation) and was immediately pulled up by an enthusiastic Susan. Aunt Amelia stepped out smoothly behind him and swept the ash from his robes with a casual flick of her wand. Harry took a moment to look around.

He knew of the Leaky Cauldron, of course – it was a very famous place in wizarding history – but listening to the stories, he had expected something… grander. It was a gloomy, smoky pub, smelling faintly of tobacco and a bitter tang that Harry recognized as alcohol. A handful of witches and wizards were sitting at tables around the edge of the room, speaking in soft voices over drinks or steaming plates of food. Some had looked up when they Flooed in, but quickly returned to their meals, uninterested in a few more patrons passing through.

"Good morning, Madame Bones!" called a voice from behind the bar.

"Hello Tom."

Tom was a very bald, very wrinkled old man whose cheery grin revealed an almost complete lack of teeth. He seemed kindly enough, although when his gaze fell on Harry he could see the intelligence behind those old eyes. Harry resolved not to underestimate the man in the future.

"Anything for you today? Or young Susan?" he asked.

"No, thank you," Aunt Amelia responded. "Just passing through, doing some shopping.

Tom waved them through the bar and out the Leaky Cauldron's back door. Harry was excited to see his first glimpse of Diagon Alley, but was disappointed to find that they were instead in a run-down dead-end alleyway. All that was inside were some old trash cans.

"This is it?" he heard himself say.

Auror McGreery barked out a sharp laugh that he tried unsuccessfully to turn into a cough. Aunt Amelia allowed herself a small smile.

"It doesn't look like much, does it?" she asked rhetorically, pulling out her wand. "But watch closely."

She pressed her want to one of the bricks above the trash cans – "three up, two across" – and suddenly the bricks began to write and twist apart. In front of Harry's wide eyes an archway appeared. The archway opened onto a cobblestone street that stretched for what seemed like miles in front of them. The sounds of hundreds of people shopping rushed to his ears where before was only silence. A potent smell wafted toward them from the alley, smelling like potion ingredients and wood and animals; it made Harry want to sneeze.

"Welcome, James" Aunt Amelia said grandly, "to Diagon Alley."

Harry stood there in shock for a few moments, drinking it all in. He would gladly have stood there for a lot longer, if Susan hadn't grabbed his hand and dragged him forcefully into the Alley.

"C'mon!" she shouted at him. "Let's go!"

And so they went. The trip down Diagon Alley was one of Harry's most amazing experiences. He could gladly have stayed there for days just looking around. He'd seen magic before, but never so much of it in one place. There was an apothecary with all kinds of strange jars and plants in the windows which seemed to be the source of many of the scents he was picking up. A shop on the other side of the road advertised all kinds of cauldrons (he could see signs advertising copper, brass, pewter, and silver). Hoots and barks and screeches were coming from Eeylops Owl Emporium. Quality Quidditch Supplies had some broomsticks in the windows, with children pressing their noses right into the glass to look at a particularly fancy-looking one.

They passed dozens of other shops on their way down the street. Everything he could think of – and some he hadn't – seemed to be advertised in some store along the way. There were books, potions, robes, telescopes, fancy stones, jewelry, strange silvery instruments, and gardening supplies. Large signs advertised all kinds of other shops, lawyers, eye-healers, seers, photographers, warders, and things Harry had never heard of. (What was an Occlumancer? A Magizoologist? A Scrivener? Whatever they were, they were here.) Smaller alleys branched off the main street, providing services and goods Harry could only guess at.

And the people! It had been years since he had seen so many people in one place. Witches and wizards in a rainbow of robes walked around, clutching their purchases or discussing the latest news. A gaggle of giggling children rushed across the street just in front of them, pursued by a plump, harried-looking woman with bright purple hair.

His aunt seemed a popular woman, as numerous people called out to her as they made their way through the crowds. A few even tried to come up to engage her in conversation, but she brushed them off effortlessly. The persistent ones were quickly dissuaded by Auror McGreery's stern glare.

At last, they stopped at the tall marble building that was Gringott's Bank. They needed some spending money, and more importantly wanted to check on the status of Harry's accounts. Aunt Amelia had told him that his parents had certainly left him a tidy sum of cash, which had left young Harry's head spinning for days, dreams of giant piles of gold and mountains of gems dancing through his mind. His dreams were somewhat dashed by her reminder that he did have seven years of Hogwart's tuition to pay for, on top of any spending money he wanted for the next few years. She had insisted on paying for his supplies, and he had given in after a lengthy argument.

The snowy white building towered over the shops alongside it. It had great bronze doors, and standing in guard were a pair of creatures wearing scarlet and gold uniforms and carrying a tall, wicked-looking ax. 'Goblins,' Harry thought. They bowed their little group through the outer doors, Harry giving them a nod in return.

Ahead were some silver doors with some sort of inscription on them, but Harry did not have time to read it because as soon as he crossed the threshold a wave of magic rushed over him. It was like the feelings of the wards at the Ossuary, but a hundred times stronger. He gasped, laying a hand on the stone to steady himself; however, he discovered that the effect seemed to be coming from the stones themselves.

' _Great-treasure-protect_ ,' the stones seemed to say. ' _Strong stones. Long-time-standing. Hide secrets. Goblin-forges. Many-wars. Strong stones.'_

The voices echoed around his head through the marble of the hall. Harry could almost feel the stones being crafted by goblin hands so long ago, the taps of chisels and the great blows of hammers ringing through the walls into his hand.

"James?" Susan's voice cut through the magical voices. "Are you alright?"

Harry shook his head rapidly, trying to clear his mind. "I'm OK. Can you hear it?"

Susan gave him a queer look. "Hear what?"

"The magic. In the walls. The wards, I think?" he ended on a question.

"You can feel the wards?" Aunt Amelia asked, concern entering her tone. "Are they hurting you?"

Harry shook his head again. "No, no, no," he said quickly. "It's not bad. It's like… when we got into the alley and all those people were talking all at once. But with feelings," he ended lamely.

"You hear the voices in the stones," a gravelly voice stated. They all turned to the goblin guard standing near the inner doors. He was staring at Harry with an indecipherable look on his face. Respect? Anger? Curiousity? Harry couldn't really tell.

"You can hear them too?" Harry asked him excitedly. It would be nice to know that someone else did, even if it was a goblin.

The goblin looked affronted for a moment. "Of course. All goblins know the _Khozdul_ , The Spirits In The Stones. But I have never before met a human who could hear it."

"It's… amazing," Harry said, after several false starts. It seemed woefully inadequate, but thankfully the goblin seemed to understand. The goblin and his partner both bowed deeply.

"Welcome, young master, to Gringott's Bank. May your day bring you fortune," the goblin said, opening the silver doors to let their group into the bank.

"You as well, sir," Harry replied automatically.

They passed into a vast hall. The floors and walls were of marble, gilded here and there with silver and gold. Columns of marble reached up like trees, covered with elegant carvings of goblins in various states of activity. Doors – too many to count – led off of the hall in all directions, with goblins and humans emerging from them in a frenzy of activity. A long counter covered one side of the hall, staffed by at least a hundred goblins sitting on high stools. Some scribbled in thick ledgers, others weighed precious stones or coins on great brass scales, while still others were arguing with the wizards and witches standing in front of them.

Their group approached a free goblin.

"Good morning," Aunt Amelia. "We wish to make a withdrawal from my vault" – here, she handed over a fancy golden key – "and we need to speak privately regarding any potential existing vaults for my adopted son, here."

The goblin behind the counter set aside the magnifying glass he was using to examine an emerald the size of Harry's fist. Curious, Harry reached out his magic to feel it; to his surprise, it was intensely magical. Harry could not identify its exact purpose, but it gave off a positive feeling. Protective, and yet stimulating. Idly he wondered whether if goblins could train him in how to listen to the voices more accurately. Suddenly, the goblin was staring at him intently. It was highly uncomfortable but Harry held his gaze. The goblin seemed satisfied after a few seconds and looked back to Aunt Amelia.

"Would you like to meet first, or go to your vaults now? Such a meeting can sometimes take time."

"We will get the meeting done now and go down to both of our vaults later," Aunt Amelia told the goblin. "Save ourselves a trip."

The goblin nodded. "Very well. Furntell will escort you to one of our Accounts Managers."

Furntell, it turns out, was another goblin. He led them through one of the many identical doors ringing the hall and through a maze of winding corridors and stairways. Harry guessed they had gone up at least three floors before they stopped in front of another unmarked door.

"Accounts Manager Thriftlog will be with you shortly," Furntell told them, before he disappeared without another word.

"So you can feel the wards here too?" Susan asked quietly. She sounded very excited about it.

"It's much stronger here than at home," Harry told her. "I bet you could feel it too if you wanted."

Susan pouted. "I didn't feel anything at all. You must be special."

Harry frowned. He didn't like being special. Special was just a polite way of saying weird. Deciding to pass the time, he grabbed Susan's hand and gently pressed it to the stone wall. Opening up his magic to the wards he listened again, trying to will the voices to pass through his hand into Susan's.

" _Feel_ ," he told her softly. The magic washed over him again, strong and proud and old, although he noticed a subtle difference here from the entranceway. It was less warlike here, more… thoughtful. ' _Records-books-remember-history-family-secrets'_ , the voices whispered.

Susan let out a little squeak of surprise. "I can feel it!" she whispered excitedly. "It's… tingly."

'Tingly' wasn't how Harry would have said it, but it was better than nothing.

"Good job!" he told her. "If you practice you'll probably be as good as me soon."

She kept her hand on the wall, her face screwed up in concentration. So intent was she on hearing the voices that she jumped about a foot in the air when the door in front of them opened.

"Enter," called the goblin.

Aunt Amelia ushered them all into the goblin's office. Great filing cabinets covered the entire wall all the way around the office, floor to ceiling. Thriftlog himself was an ancient goblin with long white hair and a thick grey beard, dressed in a leather surcoat and black pants. Harry would have thought he looked silly if not for the large, vicious-looking battleaxe hanging from the ceiling just behind him. A few plain wooden chairs sat in front of the goblin's large desk, and he gestured them to sit down.

"So," he began slowly. His voice was older and rougher than the previous goblins Harry had met. "You believe your new ward may have some existing accounts with our bank?"

Aunt Amelia placed a hand on Harry's shoulder. "Yes. Mr. Potter was initially raised by Muggles but I am sure that his parents would have kept their assets in the safety of Gringott's."

"Quite, quite," the goblin croaked, showing no surprise at Harry's name being revealed. "Yes, the Potter account remains safe with us. Am I right to assume that Mr. Potter does not have his key?"

"You are correct. I checked with the Ministry, but no key was located in his home after the attack."

Susan grabbed his hand and gave it a comforting squeeze. Harry smiled at her in thanks. He wished he had gotten to know his parents, but he had no real memories of them. It was hard to miss what he had never known, and he had long since accepted their deaths. Still, the support of his new family gave him a warm feeling.

"I see," Thriftlog said. "There is a ten galleon fee for new key creation, which can be taken out of the vault in question."

"Harry? Is that alright?" Aunt Amelia asked him. "It's your account, after all."

Harry opened his mouth to agree, but something about the expectant look in the goblin's eyes made him pause. Instead, what he said was,

"What if I have more than one vault?"

The goblin's dark eyes shone with amusement. "That would, of course, be ten more galleons each."

Harry closed his eyes and reached out with his magic for a moment.

' _Challenge-duel-thrill-of-the-fight-bargain-battle-victory,'_ the voices rang. Memories – the barest hints, nothing more than whispers – seemed to enter his mind, of haggling, offers and counteroffers, feints and deceptions. The goblins liked to fight, the stones told him. They liked winning, the harder the battle the sweeter the victory. So he took a gamble and listened to the spirit of the stones.

"Ten galleons now, for all of my vaults," Harry said firmly.

He could feel Aunt Amelia's angry glare, but the light in Thriftlog's eyes told him he had made the right choice.

"Ah, but you may have many vaults," the goblin said. "There could be a great many to create new keys for. Quite a lot of work for us."

"But there could only be one or two," Harry pointed out. "Then you would make a lot of money just for a few keys."

"Gringott's does not gamble on such things, it would be highly improper."

"Fine, then," Harry said, taking a new approach. "Five galleons each. If there's lots of vaults you'll make plenty of money."

"Ah, but our keys are very secure," said the goblin. "It takes a lot of work to make them, there are so many enchantments on each. We could not accept less than eight galleons per vault."

"Six galleons."

"Nice try, Mr. Potter. Eight galleons remains the price."

Harry did some quick math in his head. "Ten for the first vault and six for any others."

Thriftlog grinned, a fearsome smile full of sharp teeth. "Ten for the first, seven for the others, and you have a deal."

He reached out a clawed hand, which Harry shook. "So how many vaults do I have, exactly?" he asked.

"Three, to my knowledge," came the answer. "But perhaps more that I am unaware of. There is a simple test we can perform, if you would like to know."

Aunt Amelia, still frowning at his bargaining, gave him an encouraging wave of her hand.

"Let's do it," he said firmly.

"We need only a bit of blood; any vaults you have a right to will appear," Thriftlog said, handing Harry a small knife and gesturing to a strange silvery apparatus on the corner of the desk. The base was made from some kind of stone embedded with veins of silver. A silver tray was where the blood went, before spreading out down little channels studded with multiple precious stones. Strange symbols covered the entire surface of the device.

Harry made a slight cut on the back of his hand and let the blood run into tray. As soon as the drops hit, the symbols began to light up. Blood ran in rivulets down the channels, causing the gemstones to glow and swirl. After a few seconds, there was a loud whirring sound and a parchment shot out of the bottom of the stone, from a slot Harry could have sworn wasn't there a moment before.

Thriftlog took it and scanned it quickly. One fluffy eyebrow rose in surprise.

"Something bad?" Harry asked.

"Not bad," the goblin mused. "But certainly unexpected."

"Unexpected how?" Aunt Amelia asked sharply.

"Tell me, Mr. Potter, does the name Slytherin mean anything to you?"

"Umm… It's the name of one of the founders," Harry offered, baffled by the random topic.

"Indeed. The line was lost hundreds of years ago," Aunt Amelia added. "The Potters were not connected in any way that I have ever heard."

"There is no direct between the two families," Thriftlog said, still staring at the page. "And yet…" he turned the parchment toward them.

 _Identity: Harry James Potter_

 _Age: 10 years, 10 months, 3 days_

 _Current Head of House Potter, Head of House Slytherin_

 _Heir: none_

 _Next of Kin: Amelia Patricia Bones, mother (adopted)_

 _Sirius Orion Black (godfather)_

 _Father: James Abraham Potter_

 _Mother: Lily Jessica Potter née Evans_

 _Adopted, Bones family, 1990_

 _Vaults (active): 1,294: Lily Potter Personal Vault_

 _687: Potter Family Cash Vault_

 _213: Potter Family Security Vault_

 _Vaults (restricted access): 642: Bones Family Cash Vault_

 _175: Bones Family Security Vault_

 _003: Black Family Security Vault_

 _Vaults (inactive): 47, Slytherin Family Security Vault_

"That… is more than two vaults," Harry said stupidly, staring at the page in shock.

"Indeed," the goblin said with a bark of laughter. "The Bones family vaults do not count, as you have to be granted access by the Head of House directly. So we do not need new keys for those. Black…" he shuffled through filing cabinets before pulling out a thick leather binder with "Black" stamped on the front.

"Ah," he continued after glancing through a few pages. "Sirius Black named you his heir shortly after he was named your godfather. He remains Head of House despite being in Azkaban, how interesting…"

"I have a Godfather?" Harry asked faintly. " _Sirius Black_ is my godfather? The crazy murderer?"

"Yes, yes, you have a godfather, congratulations," Thriftlog said drily. "Given his incarceration, you have limited access to vault until he gives permission. Now," he pulled out an ancient-looking pile of loosely bound parchment from another cabinet, "we come to the true mystery. How did you come to have access to a vault which has been inactive for hundreds of years?"

"I have no idea!" Harry exclaimed defensively. "I've never even met a Slytherin!"

"Hmm…" the goblin pored over the yellowed parchments. "The vault was emptied in 1584 by the Gaunt family, the last heirs to the Slytherin name. It has remained inactive thanks to the contract signed at the vault's creation, stating that the vault would always belong to the Slytherins and their heirs. You do owe us a few thousand Galleons in fees, by the way," the goblin said, seeming quite pleased by that fact.

"A _few thousand in fees!_ " Harry shouted. "I don't even know if I _have_ a few thousand Galleons!"

"You can afford it, I assure you," the goblin waved his hand dismissively. Your parents paid for your Hogwarts tuition at your birth, so your major expense for the next few years is already taken care of. Lily Potter's vault can cover your fees and leave you with all of the cash in the Potter vaults."

He handed Harry another sheet of parchment. "Your Potter vault summaries. I had them prepared before I knew of this new development."

Harry no idea what most of the words on the page meant, but he guessed that the number at the bottom was the total amount. His mother's personal vault did indeed have over 4,000 Galleons in it, although he supposed that was probably going to be gone soon. The Potter Family Cash Vault had even more – over 12,000 Galleons – and there was another 2,000 in the Potter Family Security Vault. Harry didn't know how much a lot of things cost, but he knew it was quite a bit of money. He handed his vault summaries to his mother, who he was sure would know.

She scanned it quickly. "This is a tidy sum of money, Harry," she told him. "You'll still have to work later in life, but you have more than enough to ensure you have a comfortable start after school."

"And you can afford to get me some nice Christmas presents!" Susan said, having peeked at the page over his shoulder.

"Susan!" her aunt scolded. Susan just stuck her tongue out at him. Harry laughed.

A loud snap drew their attention. Thriftlog had shoved the Slytherin pages back into a cabinet before slamming it shut in frustration.

"I am uncertain how you obtained access to the Slytherin vault, Mr. Potter, but rest assured I will be launching an investigation. In the meantime, I will escort you to our Access Department. They will be getting you your new keys."

Thriftlog guided them down more hallways and staircases to another plain door, muttering what seemed like goblin curses under his breath. Inside the next room a rather rude goblin placed another sample of Harry's blood into a machine which spit out four new keys. Each had the vault number engraved on it in tiny numbers so Harry could keep track of them. His Aunt warned him sternly about keeping them safe before they were finally escorted by yet another goblin down to their vaults.

A rickety mining cart whisked them down tunnels at breakneck speeds. The goblin was not steering, but the cart seemed to know its way through the maze. They stopped first at his new Cash Vault, taking a few handfuls of Galleons, Sickles, and Knuts for his spending money; another trip to the Bones vault secured enough gold for their shopping for the day. They all decided to explore his other vaults on another day, as they had already spent too long in the bank. So they passed through the burnished bronze doors, receiving one last bow from the goblins, and stepped back out into the bright sunshine and general hustle and bustle of Diagon Alley to continue their shopping adventures.


	7. Chapter 7: Diagon Alley, part 2

Having completed their banking for the morning, the rest of the day was spent on a whirlwind shopping tour. Between the new, crowded environment of Diagon Alley, Susan's bubbly enthusiasm, and the revelations at Gringott's, Harry spent much of the afternoon in a haze. They stopped at Madame Malkin's Robes for All Occasions, where he was forced to endure what felt like a lifetime of being measured for robes, watching Susan modeling different robes, resisting her attempts to make _him_ try on robes, and trying (and failing) to ignore the smirks directed at him from Aunt Amelia and Auror McGreery. He had left the store with more robes than he would have ever thought necessary. Even that was nothing compared to the mountain of robes Susan had purchased, some of whose colors Harry had never even heard of. He was certain that at least some of them had been made up on the spot (what on earth was 'periwinkle', and why did she also need one called lilac even though they were the same color?).

After narrowly avoiding death-by-clothes-shopping, Aunt Amelia had guided them to the next shop on their list: Truman's Trunks, Tents, and Travel-bags for Trusty Travelers. There, Harry and Susan each bought an upgraded Hogwarts trunk and a leather schoolbag from the excitable Mr. Truman, an elderly wizard a Hawaiian shirt underneath a red and gold kimono. Harry enjoyed it considerably more than clothes shopping, as Mr. Truman entertained them with stories of his many travels and adventures while he prepared their items. Harry's trunk made made of beautiful mahogany, with charms to make it waterproof, fireproof, and cold- and heat-resistant. It was locked with a padlock as well as a password charm at his insistence. Inside it was expanded to hold twice its expected volume. His schoolbag, a sturdy leather thing, had similar charms, except without any passwords. Harry was so pleased with Mr. Truman's work (and interested in his stories) that he ordered his first purchase with his new personal funds: a backpack made from real dragonhide. The Hebridean Black skin was smooth and tough, and inside Mr. Truman had managed to carve enough runes to expand it to three times its outer size. Being made of dragonhide, it was naturally resistant to both water and fire, and would even reflect minor hexes and jinxes.

They made a brief stop for lunch after loading all of their robes into their new trunks – which took Susan at least ten minutes – and Harry was introduced to the concept of having ice cream for lunch at Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor. Even the normally stern Aunt Amelia had caved in to Susan's pleas for ice cream, the dual arguments of "it's my birthday" and "but James has never had it!" finally breaking her down. After lunch a sugar-crazed Susan had led them on a high-speed run through stores to pick up cauldrons, potions ingredients, collapsible telescopes, herbology supplies, parchment and quills, and finally schoolbooks.

Harry and Susan had a fun time exploring Flourish and Blott's, looking through the many strange books. Harry was particularly revolted by the "Harry Potter Adventures" book series depicting his many supposed accomplishments. According to the author, Harry had already tussled with trolls, flown on a dragon, battled banshees, outwitted a warlock, and, worst of all, "escaped safely from the Muggle world." He was half-tempted to buy some of the books on hexes, jinxes, and curses to use on the author of that terrible series. He was also sorely tempted by a book on magical camping spells, while Susan had become engrossed in a section about magical creatures. Eventually Aunt Amelia dragged them away from the books and ensured they stuck to the required books on the first-year list. She did add a few extra Defense Against the Dark Arts texts, to ensure that they could begin to train to defend themselves (Auror McGreery agreed that the Quentin Trimble book they were assigned was a good start but was lax on the practical side of things).

It was late afternoon by the time they made their way into Ollivander's (Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C., according to the sign). The store looked shabby, but as they crossed the threshold Harry felt the tingle that he now recognized as wards. The ones in the shop were far weaker than the ones at the bank, but they felt older and somehow more alive than any he had felt before. They were in a room full of thousands of narrow boxes, piled from floor to ceiling on rickety wooden shelves. Reaching out with his magic, Harry started when he felt someone's presence coming from a dark room behind the counter.

"Good afternoon," an old man's voice greeted them softly. Susan jumped next to him and grabbed his hand. He gave her a steadying smile as he returned the man's greeting.

Mr. Ollivander stepped into the light, bearing a long tape measure and a few boxes of what Harry assumed were wands. He was an ancient-looking man, with long grey hair and a scraggly beard. His robes were so faded and worn that Harry could hardly identify the original color.

"Ah, Miss Bones," he said, smiling kindly. "Welcome, welcome. It feels like only yesterday that your parents were in here buying their first wands. Hazel and unicorn hair, ten and three quarter inches, for your mother; your father favored his oak and dragon heartstring, twelve inches, very sturdy, yes, yes… a terrible thing, what happened to them. Good people, both of them. A great loss for us all."

"Um… thank you?" Susan said uncertainly. Harry knew they still had both wands in the house, as mementos. It was traditional in some families to pass on old wands down the generations. Susan had already tried her old family wands, without finding a match. She had been upset, but matching to an heirloom wand was the exception rather than the rule.

"And welcome, Mister… ah," Ollivander turned towards Harry. His silvery-blue eyes flicked toward Aunt Amelia, to the suddenly-alert Auror McGreery, before returning to Harry's green ones. Harry wasn't certain how he had been recognized under his Glamour Charm, especially when no one was supposed to know he was living with the Bones's.

"Yes, I remember your parents as well. Ten and a quarter inches, willow and unicorn hair, your mother's wand. Excellent for charms work. Your father was better with transfiguration, and his wand chose well. Mahogany and phoenix feather, eleven inches, pliable. The wand chooses the wizard, after all."

He clapped suddenly, the sound echoing in the silent store.

"Ladies first!" he called.

Susan nervously stepped up to the counter.

"Wand arm out," Ollivander instructed. She held out her left hand, and he began measuring her all over. Fingertip to shoulder, wrist to elbow, shoulder to feet, around the arm, across the palm… As he did so, he began speaking.

"Every one of our wands has a unique combination of wood and magical substances, Miss Bones. No two wands are quite the same, even should they be made of the exact same types of wood or magical substance. No two trees or magical creatures are the same, after all. The wand chooses the wizard, and you will never get ideal results with another wizard's wand."

"That will be enough," he said aloud, and the tape measure, which Harry now noticed was working on its own, crumpled to the ground.

"Now, let us try this… maple and phoenix feather, nine inches, nice and springy."

Susan picked it up gingerly, but he swiped it out of her hand almost immediately.

"No, no. Here, hazel and unicorn hair, thirteen inches, very bendy."

She managed only a short wave before he snatched it back again.

"Closer that time. I think… yes, try this. Elm and unicorn hair, eleven and a half inches, rather inflexible."

Susan picked up the wand and gave it a little wave. A shower of golden sparks shot from the wand, casting little shadows all over the shop. Harry clapped and cheered, while Susan beamed.

"Bravo! Very good, an excellent match. A dependable wand, loyal to its ownder. Congratulations, Miss Bones."

Susan waved her new wand excitedly, more sparks spilling out onto the wooden floors. Aunt Amelia gave her a proud hug, while Auror McGreery settled for applauding politely.

"Now, for you, Mister…Bones," Ollivander said. Harry glanced at Aunt Amelia, who gave him an encouraging nod.

He stepped up to the counter and held out his right hand.

"Yes, that's it," Ollivander said. "Now, something tells me you may be a tricky customer, young sir. Not to worry, I've never failed to find a match for a customer in all my years."

Harry still worried that he would be the first. His thoughts were evidently visible on his face.

"Now, now!" the wandmaker laughed. "We'll find your match, never fear. It's the wand that chooses the wizard, of course, but something tells me your match is in this room right now."

Ollivander began the measuring process, but Harry noticed that while the measuring tape did its work he could feel the man's magic reaching out and probing him. It was a bizarre, somewhat uncomfortable feeling. He suddenly felt very vulnerable, almost naked. He shivered, and the probing ceased abruptly.

"Well, well," Ollivander said slowly. "How curious."

"What's curious?" Harry replied, somewhat defensively.

"Magic sensing, at your age. Not something I've ever seen in a first-time customer."

"Is that bad?" Harry asked anxiously.

"Bad?" the wandmaker said incredulously. "Heavens, no! It is a wonderful skill, all too rare these days."

"Other people can do it?" Harry was excited. Perhaps someone could teach him how to improve.

"Oh yes," said Ollivander. "It is a necessary skill in wandcrafters of all kinds. It is usually a skill that develops only after many years of study. But I have heard stories of it developing after periods of great stress. Perhaps there is some truth to the rumors after all."

"So can I still use a wand?"

"Of course, of course. Wands are but tools. The magic is always there."

"What if someone could do magic without a wand? Could they still use one?" Harry tried to sound casual, but was fairly certain he was failing spectacularly.

Ollivander paused in his gathering of boxes. He turned his silvery eyes onto Harry intently.

"Many wizards think that magic comes from within the body. That wands are simply projectors, to focus the magic. But we wandmakers have always known this view to be wrong. Magic simply is, Mr. Potter. Magic cannot be created, it cannot be destroyed. Spells are simply a form of the magic that surrounds us all. Wands are a way of… easing our communication with the magic around us. Those who can see the world as it truly is may communicate with magic directly, without requiring a wand. In answer to your question, any witch or wizard _can_ use a wand. The question you should ask instead is, do you _need_ to use a wand?"

"I can't do a lot of spells that I've seen, though," Harry argued.

Ollivander shrugged. "Wands are a focus, of sorts. Many of the finer types of magic are much easier with such a tool. I know of few things than could not ultimately be done without a wand, if one has the skill and talent for it."

Harry thought for a moment.

"Can you do magic without one?"  
Ollivander smiled secretively. "I can. Magic is involved in the wandmaking process, and wands can be rather jealous. Using a wand is not recommended."

"Is it possible to use both?"

"At once? I do not know. In general – of course. Think of wands like eyeglasses. You can wear them to enhance your vision. If one wears them all of the time, you might think that it is impossible to see without them. But you and I both know it is not. You can put them on and take them off at will, with no ill effects."

Harry had made his decision. "If I can find a wand, I'll take one."

Ollivander smiled again. "Let us get to it."

Harry tried out wand after wand. Ebony, hawthorn, redwood, oak; unicorn hair, dragon heartstring, phoenix feather. None seemed to work. Harry often did not even need to touch them before pulling his hand away in disgust. Despite his difficulties, Ollivander seemed to grow more excited with every wand he tried.

After a small mountain of wands lay discarded on the desk, Harry started growing frustrated. The hope that had built up by speaking with the wandmaker seemed to have left him. Maybe he wasn't destined to have a wand. In one last-ditch effort he simply sent out a sharp pulse of magic with only one goal in mind: to find his match.

To his amazement – and that of the rest of the people in the store – a wand suddenly burst out of its box and flew across the room. Harry felt a burst of warmth as soon as it flew into his hand, and a burst of scarlet and gold sparks burst from the wand's tip. The faintest notes of phoenix song echoed around the room, causing the hair on the back of Harry's neck to stand on end.

"Oh wonderful! How splendid! Very well done. A finer match you could not ask for."

"It's amazing," Harry breathed.

"Holly and phoenix feather, nine and three quarter inches. Nice and supple. A loyal wand, suitable for powerful magic. I think we can expect great things from you, my boy."

"Thanks," Harry replied absently, still reveling in his new wand's affection. It felt like he had been reunited with a long-lost friend.

"A word of warning," the wandmaker cautioned. "The phoenix who gave his feather for that wand gave one other feather. Your wand's brother… yew, thirteen inches… I'm afraid that it was your wand's brother that gave you that scar on your forehead."

Harry touched the faded scar on his head faintly.

"Yes, I'm sorry to say that I sold the wand that did it. A powerful wand, used for terrible things. A tragic shame."

Harry stared at his wand thoughtfully. After a moment, he shrugged it off. After all, he knew a lot about having terrible relatives. The wand seemed pleased that he was not upset with it, if such a thing was possible.

"Treat it well, and it will treat you well in return. Both of you," Ollivander turned back to Susan. She jumped again at the sudden attention.

"That will be seven Galleons each."

Harry paid scant attention as Aunt Amelia added a pair of leather wand holsters and some wand-maintenance kits before settling the bill. The sun was beginning to set by the time they headed back to the Leaky Cauldron to Floo back to the Ossuary. They all had a quick dinner before going to bed early, tired out by the long day and the many revelations their trip had uncovered.


End file.
